Daddy Come Home
by Animagious-White-Tiger
Summary: Future Version Riddick returns to Helion Prime to find the daughter he left behind fourteen years ago when he saved the planet. Will she accept him as her father, or will she take up where her uncle left off? Enjoy. R&R COMPLETED!
1. Intro

**Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from Pitch Black or Chronicles of Riddick, except for Kyra after the movies. I do own Zara, and Dannie, as well as any other character that you find in this story that were not in the movies.**

It's been fourteen years since Dannie saw him last. She met him once after she turned five, the first birthday without her mother. Zara, her mother, was beautiful, but then every little girl thinks that about their mother, atleast that is what she thinks as far as the memories she has of her are concerned. Zara had short, golden brown, curly hair, sapphire blue eyes, a well toned body, and she stood, from what Dannie was told, at around five foot, nine inches.

Dannie was told stories about her mother from her Aunt Kyra. She's not really her aunt, but she was like a sister to Zara, so that was just what Dannie had always called her.

_**Your mother and I were pissed off at your dad, and she wanted to find him however she could so she could bring him back to you so she could make you happy. Do you remember that birthday wish you had when you were little? Well you mother couldn't stand seeing you so unhappy, so she went with me to go find him. To bring him back and to make sure that nothing happened to me. While we were gone we were captured and sent to slam for some bad things that we did while trying to find him.**_

_**The Lord Marshall had Riddick down on the ground and was about to finish him off, when she ran up behind the Lord Marshall with a spear and plunged into his back to get his attention off of Riddick. She accomplished her mission, and she paid the price for her quick actions. She was thrown into a pillar with daggers sticking out all around it and she contracted a fatal wound. She died in Riddick's arms after he killed the Lord Marshall.**_

To Dannie, her mom seemed like the kind of person every little girl should hope to be like, strong, courageous, and beautiful. But Dannie always believed that her father didn't seem like the type that her mother would have even given a second glance to. He was rude, arrogant, and an escaped convicted murderer.

_**Richard B. Riddick, escaped convict, murderer. The man who saved your mother and myself, as well as Imam, from a planet of unspeakable horrors, and the one whom saved this planet and many afterwards from destruction. He saved your mother and I from a fate worse than death, but was unable to stop her from her own demise. Your one and only father.**_

Zara had told stories to Kyra about her brother, Dannie's Uncle Jonn's. Kyra never liked telling those stories to Dannie, but he was apart of her family, so it didn't seem all that right to keep something that important hidden from her.

_**Zara told me this story once long ago. She knew that her brother, Jonns, had been chasing Riddick, and after the first meeting, Riddick had nearly killed him, but missed the sweet spot which left him alive and the doctors ended up leaving a piece of the shiv in his back. All this happened years before he actually captured Riddick. He couldn't go back after him until he healed back up, and during that time he got hooked on morphine which changed him completely. He turned from a kind, loving brother to a cold, calculating, distant man who would have hit her just as soon as look at her if he didn't have a good spike. On that planet everyone thought that he was a cop, but it turned out that he was a merck and your father was his payday.**_

Dannie knew that her uncle had some serious problems, but he was, after all her uncle, and at least he was on the right side of the law, even if he did have to bend some of the rules to get his criminal. Mercks were the necessary part of the universe. They helped the cops get the part of their jobs done that their oaths would prevent them from doing because it went outside of the law. All her uncle was trying to do was bring him in so he could serve his time, and Riddick tried to kill him.

He is the reason why Dannie does what she does.


	2. Dannie's Childhood

She was good at what she did, even Kyra had to admit it. However, she wasn't Dannie's mother so she never had any real authority over her and after she hit her teen years, they both knew it. All Kyra could do was hope that Dannie would be safe, and not get hurt and end up like her uncle did.

Dannie used to beg, when she was a child, to go with Kyra to help her find her father and not be left with Imam's wife, Nashun, and daughter, Zeeza. But she never got her wish, and Kyra always came home after six months or so.

Dannie hated the night before Kyra would leave for another deep run. But she would always have Kyra tell her a story, either how she met her mother, father, or how they all saved the planet from the Necros. Kyra used to tell her all three stories, but quit after Dannie developed nightmares when she told her about how they saved the planet from the Necros.

**_Both your mother and I met your father many years ago on a planet that was a desert in the light of three sun for around twenty-two years and then it was engulfed in complete darkness for a long time afterwards until the eclipse past by. We crashed landed on that planet after we past through a meteor shower that killed many people. We were only there for about a day, but it was the longest day of my entire life. Your father, Riddick, was being taken back to slam after being tracked all around the universe, by your uncle. Everyone thought that he was a cop, but it turned out that he was a merck and your father was his payday. _**"**_Didn't you and mom go after him as mercks?_**"

**_Yes, but when we did that, your mother and I were pissed off at your dad, and she wanted to find him however she could so she could bring him back to you so she could make you happy. Do you remember that birthday wish you had when you were little, well you mother couldn't stand seeing you so unhappy, so she went with me to go find him. To bring him back and to make sure that nothing happened to me. _**"**_But you guys didn't come back like you usually did._**"

**_No we were captured and sent to slam for some bad things that we did while trying to find him. But didn't you meet him when he came and saw Imam?_** "**_Yes_**."

_**But anyways, she didn't like your father when she first met him. She told me this story once long ago. She knew that her brother, Jonns, had been chasing him, and after the first meeting, Riddick had nearly killed him, but missed the sweet spot and the doctors had to leave a piece of the shiv in his back. He couldn't go back after him until he healed back up, and during that time he got hooked on morphine which changed him completely. He turned from a kind, loving brother to a cold, calculating, distant man who would have hit her just as soon as look at her if he didn't have a good spike.**_

_**She did everything to fight him and help her brother keep him under control, but the closer she would get to Riddick the more she would start to care for him and trust him. Jonns hated the idea, and Riddick became a witness to the abuse he caused. And I don't know when, but Riddick started being the one who was protecting her from her brother.**_

_**He was even the one who killed him, right in front of her. I saw her attack him after Jonns was killed by the things on that planet after Riddick slashed his back, but he managed to get her to calm down, I don't know why, but they ended up kissing at the end of their argument.After we got off that planet, Riddick stayed around for about a month and never left her side. They were either in their room, or outside with me, training. I wanted to learn how to fight and Riddick was the best person to teach me, but he also taught Zara, a few basic things. Just enough to help her get by in life, so she could at least defend herself. I got the more advanced training. When he left it broke Zara's heart and she grew bitter, so she started training with me and she even got better than me. She gave birth to you eight months after Riddick left, and when she wasn't training or taking care of you, she was trying to find a merck crew that would take us on and teach us the trade so we could find him.**_

_**We killed a few people, quite a few people, and we became a payday for the very mercks who had taken us on. They took us to slam when you turned four, and Zara began to believe that she would never see you again. She didn't know just how right she was.**_

_**Riddick came to Helion Prime and found you, but he never meant to. After meeting you and Zeeza, he came after Zara and I in Crematoria. He found us, got us off of that planet, with us all fighting the entire way. He saved her from getting shot, he saved me from getting fried on a mountain side, and we helped a Necromunger save him from getting fried on Crematoria. All three of us headed back to Helion Prime, Riddick, Zara, and I, to try to stop the Necros from destroying the planet, only a few hours behind the Necro ship ourselves.**_

_**We had hoped to find you before everything went down, but couldn't. We got on the ship, and Riddick fought the Lord Marshall in order to protect the planet. He almost died, if it hadn't been for your mother. I was too far away, and she was right there, watching the only man she had ever loved fighting to protect her, her child, me, and everyother person on this planet that he had never met. The Lord Marshall had Riddick down on the ground and was about to finish him off, when she ran up behind the Lord Marshall with a spear and plunged into his back to get his attention off of Riddick. She accomplished her mission, and she paid the price for her quick actions. She was thrown into a pillar with daggers sticking out all around it and she contracted a fatal wound. She died in Riddick's arms after he killed the Lord Marshall.He left with the Necros after that, he didn't even come back with me to try to find you. So I stayed behind to help raise you.**_

When she turned thirteen, Kyra couldn't deny that Dannie was so much like her father, defiant until the last. If Dannie wanted something, it was much harder to get her to accept "NO" for an answer without giving into something else.

So from then on, Dannie only agreed to stay where she was told and quit bugging Kyra about going with her to help find Riddick, as she had begun to refer to her father as, but only if Kyra agreed to train her. Dannie's argument was simply this, "You were my age when you started training, maybe even younger. And besides, if you don't train me, than I'll just have to find someone else who will. And I will never quit asking to go on the deep runs with you."

Dannie got her wish. Kyra began to train her when she was back on Helion Prime, but never around Zeeza, and only if she never tried to teach Zeeza anything.

Eventually, Dannie had begun to get better than Kyra as far as her fighting skills were concerned, but not her killing abilities. Kyra swore that she would never teach Dannie how to kill, and Dannie swore she would never ask to be taught. She had always said, "I only want to be able to defend myself, and have a way to be able to get out any frustration I may have. I don't want to turn out like my father, and I don't want to end up dead at an early age like my mother."

As Dannie got older, she began to grow into her looks. She used to keep her hair short to be like her mother, but eventually she began to let it grow past her shoulders like Kyra had always had it. Dannie's hair never curled up like her mother's did, but instead stayed straight, so Dannie would keep it in a tight braid at all times. By the time that Dannie got the look that she could handle and take care of the best, her hair reached down to the middle of her back. She had chocolate brown hair, emerald green eyes, and she filled out the rest of the way better than her mother ever could.

As Dannie got older, Kyra began to see that finding her father was beginning to grow farther from her mind. Kyra began to go out less and less, and even eventually found a man she could settle down with. Dannie liked him, and he liked Dannie. He treated her like she was really apart of their family, like she was really their daughter.

Connor was the only cop that Dannie had ever met. He didn't seem nearly as bad as some people said they were. Connor once had seen her and Kyra training and decided that Dannie would have been a great asset to the Helion Prime Police Force, and brought it up with Dannie and the local chief. The chief agreed that when she was old enough she could have a job if she wanted it.

Kyra married him after dating for one year and an engagement of only six months. Dannie was her Maid of Honor, watching as she became Mrs. Connor Hall.

After the wedding, Kyra quit going out on the deep runs all together. She moved to a different planet and left Dannie on Helion Prime with Zeeza and her mother until Dannie was old enough to go out on her own. Kyra would have told Dannie to come with them, but it wouldn't be fair to make her leave her home for just under a year when she would have gone back to Helion Prime anyways. And Dannie didn't want to intrude on the happy couple, but she knew that she would always be welcome in their home.


	3. Life Without Kyra

The first year without Kyra was harder than she thought it was going to be. she no longer had anyone to help and train her. Kyra not only gave her a way to vent her frustration, but she also gave her a reason to no longer focus on Riddick and trying to go after him all the time. But most of all, she gave Dannie a home, with a mother, even if she was only thirteen years older than Dannie.

Kyra had always known just what to say when anything got her angry, upset, or just plain depressed. No one else had even gotten anywhere near as close. Kyra knew all the stories about her mother and father, and had always seemed to know just which one to tell Dannie, depending upon the mood shift.

Dannie had begun to hang around gyms and training grounds more and more after Kyra and Connor left. She could always find some unsuspecting man hanging around just looking for some new meat, an easy fight. But Dannie never lost a battle. She had her mother's determination and her father's true strength, not to mention, she never looked very threatening, so no man ever took her seriously when she would challenge them.

After about a month she had managed to start an underground fighting ring, fighting any man or woman who thought they had any chance and whom had enough money to buy into it. She was the undefeated champion and she started taking home around two thousand dollars a night on average. People began to call her Dannie the Destroyer, which later dwindled down to just The Destroyer, and she loved the fear she caused in so many men, as well as the inspiration in the women.

A year rolled by, she grew stronger, more feared, and richer. But most importantly, she was now old enough to do exactly what she had been dreaming about ever since the wedding. Now she was old enough to start working for the police force. Only, now she had a much different problem keeping her from doing what she wanted with her life, the police had heard about the underground fighting ring, and many there had lost some serious cash to this young girl, and there was no way they were going to work with her after being beaten up by her. also, it was illegal, and even though she had never been arrested, she still couldn't be apart of the force.

But the chief had another idea for her anyways. He had never meant to put her out on the streets like any other cop, he had always planned on having her train his men and women in hand to hand combat so that they could do their jobs better, and without all of the killing that had become apart of their jobs.

It wasn't anything that Dannie had been expecting, but she took the job that she was offered, and she could still keep going in the underground fighting ring, but just not for as long a night as she used to.

That day when she arrived home, there was a message waiting for her on the door. It was a note from Kyra, but it wasn't in her handwriting or in Connor's. It read:

_**Dear Dannie,**_

_**IÆm sorry that I didnÆt tell you this in person months ago, but I am pregnant, and any minute now I will be giving birth to my first child. I would have come in person, but travel is risky this close to delivery, and it took us too long before we could finally find a ship to take us there, and Connor wonÆt leave my side to come get you.**_

_**I hope that you will come to Helion 3 as soon as you can manage. I have missed you so much, and Connor wonders how you are managing without us there.**_

_**Please come as soon as you can?**_

_**Love,**_

_**Kyra, Connor, and**_

_** the newest one.**_


	4. Reunion & Meeting

After reading the note, Dannie packed up and headed down to the station to tell the chief what was going on and when she would be back, before she headed to the docks to charter a ship to Helion 3.

It was a month long journey, but Dannie made it to Helion 3 before Kyra left the hospital, so she was able to see a glowing, well rested Kyra and a beaming Connor. She was also able to help them pick out the name for their little bundle of joy. Dannie had only been joking when she said the name Cameron, but they had been racking their brains for days for a perfect name for their little boy, and Cameron was the first name that they didn't fight about.

Dannie stayed in the hospital with them for the next couple of days until they went home. She also stayed with them in their home for a month to help them out as well as spend some time with her family.

She left after the month was over and she was sure that they had everything under control. It was another month long journey, but the time seemed to fly by this time. She filled her dreams with thoughts of Kyra, Connor, and Cameron, she didn't know when she would see any of them again, but she could always hope for a visit sooner rather than later.

When she got back to Helion Prime, she started work right away. She had closed down the fighting ring while she was away, but kept it closed for an extra night to recuperate fully. No one would begrudge her that.

she began to bury herself in her work. Training men and women by day, kicking ass by night, and sleeping during the evening. She had no time for a social life whatsoever. Even if she had wanted one, the men from the class were too weak for her to take seriously when they would ask her out. She couldn't stand the idea of being with a man that she could push over with her pinkie. And the men from the fighting ring would cowar away from her because she could kick their asses so fast.

One day a new guy joined her class. He was the new transfer from Helion 5 the chief had told her would be joining the class, and he was considered the bad ass from his precinct. Dannie noticed the new face in the crowd, but that was all he was to her, and said nothing to the other students. Most of the single women were already crowded around him, and none of the men could care less if there was another guy in the mix.

Dannie saw him but thought nothing more about him, he was just some new meat that needed to be tenderized before she could do anything with him. From a glance, she couldn't see anything that made him stand out too much. He had a medium build, and other than he was the new guy, he didn't seem all that impressive to her.

She didn't have him singled out like she might have for his constant talking, and all around rudeness during her class, but she did hold him back afterwards, for a little "chat". "What the hell is your problem with shutting up during my class, no one else has a problem with it?" "I'm sure no one else has a problem, they are all too afraid of you to do anything but what you tell them. I am afraid of no woman." he said with a certain smuggness about him. "I am the teacher of this class, and by right I demand the respect of all of my students; male, female, new, or old. And if you won't extend the proper courtesy willingly, than I will beat it out of you." Dannie said feeling the anger rise in her from somewhere deep inside. "I'd like to see you try." he said laughing her off.

That was all Dannie could stand. She lunged as him and had him pinned to the ground, face down, in a heartbeat. She heard him growl as he pushed up off of the ground and sent her flying into the air. She had almost made a half circle turn and would have landed on her head, but she caught herself, and did a quick back flip to land on her feet. "Not bad." he said under his breath so not to sound too impressed.

He ran after her, threw a couple of punches, but was blocked at every try. she took her turn, but didn't land a single punch either, but managed to get him far enough away to get a better look at him. _He's stronger than he looks. And he has piercing blue eyes. I wonder if he'll be able to do what the others can't._

Kicks began to fly. Straight out, high, low, whirligigs, and twirling kicks. Most were dodged, but with the right combination they each managed to land a kick each. They fought like that for an hour, neither one landing any type of hit unless the other did as well. Dannie's last class of the day had to be cancelled because of it and he missed the beginning of his shift.

Finally, after they had both grown so tired that neither could move without their bodies protesting, he got the upper hand and managed to pin her down just long enough to say, "My name is Derick, nice to meet you teach." Dannie landed the last punch before he could block it and was knocked out. "Nice to meet you as well Derick."

**Disclaimer: I don't know how many of you who are reading this story know it, but a whirligig is a round house kick done by Robin from Teen Titans.**


	5. New Beginnings

**A/N: Thank you Melissa ( ) for pointing out that Dannie would have been a Maid of Honor, not a Matron. I did change it in that chapter.**

Six months went by and the news of Dannie spread throughout the Helion System. Stations were sending her their officers left and right, they all preferred the non-killing method to law enforcement that she provided. Derick had become her star pupil, and Dannie turned nineteen with nothing more than a simple video message from Kyra and Connor with clips of Cameron spliced in.

Dannie had no friends and that was how she liked it. _No one to get too close. No one new to just end up hurting me later._ But the ever persistent Derick never left her alone after that "beat down" she gave him.

About a week after her birthday, while "joining" Dannie for lunch one day, Derick mentioned as casually as possible, "You know, I've never met a girl who could knock me out before." "Well, I still haven't met a boy who could knock me out." Dannie said with a certain bite in her tone. "Ouch."

"Will you please go away? I was enjoying being alone with my thoughts." "Fine, but I thought you could use a friend to talk to, since you never sit with anyone, ever. But if you would rather be alone and banish me to the nether reaches of the cafeteria to have to sit in that large group of women who will all want to ravish my body, than so be it." Derick said, trying to sound as sincere as possible, and not laugh at the same time, while making huge gestures to attract as much attention as he possibly could.

"Fine you weird freak! You can sit your ass down over there," pointing a couple of chairs down to her left diagonal, "but only if you shut up and quit drawing so much attention to yourself, and me in the process." "Thank you." he whispered just for her to hear. Dannie leaned over to him and whispered forcefully, "If you ever do something like that again, I'll throw you a beat down right then and there. Understand?" "10-4, over and out."

Weeks went by, and a private friendship began to form between them. He didn't disrupt the class, she didn't have to kick his ass during class, he didn't make a big production of sitting down with her in the lunch room, she quietly allowed him to sit across from her. few words were said between them in public, but many occurred during the private hours before they would part company for the night. He would go home for the night, she would go kick many an ass before class the next morning.

After about a month, Derick sat down in the chair Dannie had pushed out for him, as was their custom, and said to Dannie as casually as he could without sounding too excited, "I've been hearing about this underground fighting ring for some time now, I think that we should go tonight, after I take you out for dinner. What do you think?" "Absolutely not." she said.

"But why? I bet that you would do great in the battles. I'd wager that you could beat their undefeated champion, this Destroyer. One look at you and he would be so cocky that you would have him unconscious in a heartbeat. Come on, say yes? I'll even join in." he practically begged. "No! and if you ask me again, I'll break your nose." she said trying not to draw too much attention to herself. Derick kept his mouth shut for the rest of the day, knowing that she didn't make threats, she kept promises.

No words passed between either of them, not even outside of work, for the next few days, until Derick noticed that she hadn't come into work one day. Dannie never missed work, not once, she never even had a day off. Not until today. Today, she was nowhere to be found. After work that day, Derick rushed over to her house to check up on her, fearing the worst.

When he got there, he could see Dannie's car in the driveway, so he knew she was home, but saw no other signs to agree with his conclusion. It was early evening and the lights were out, the door was locked, and her car was in the driveway. That combination never happened here.

He knocked on her door, but got no answer. He knocked louder, but still no answer, so he knocked louder, longer, and he yelled, but still no answer from Dannie. Derick began to get worried. If she were home and everything were alright, she would have answered by now, the door wouldn't be locked, lights would be on. He heard a scream from inside, "Dannie!"

he kicked in the door using his field training, pulled out his gun, and ran to the back of the house where he heard the screams coming from. "Dannie! Where are you? Answer me! It's Derick! Dannie!"

He made it to her bedroom, opened the door as carefully as possible so as not to alarm who ever was in the room harming Dannie. Derick looked into the room and found Dannie rolled up in the covers of her bed, thrashing about, having a nightmare. Derick calmed down almost instantly and put away his gun before he approached the sleeping Dannie. He leaned down, placed a hand on each shoulder and shook her just enough to wake her up. Dannie woke with a start, "Derick? What the hell are you doing in my home, in my room? Why are you here, tell me now and don't lie!"

"When you didn't show up for work this morning, I got worried and came over after my shift. When I got here, things looked wrong, then I heard you scream bloody murder and, broke in. when I found you, you were having a nightmare and I was just relieved to find you alive. Are you alright? You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"

"No, I'm fine. You broke in!" Dannie nearly screeched at him. "Yes, I kicked in the door. Of course, you focus in on the most unimportant part of the story." Dannie looked at him differently than she ever had, "You must have been really scarred that I couldn't even take care of myself. Seeing as I do teach a rather advanced self-defense class for cops." "Can't you just say thank you like a normal person? And yes, I was scarred that something awful happened to you. I don't know what you have planned for tomorrow's class." he said as jokingly as he could.

He left the room to allow her to change into some slightly less revealing clothes so they could talk in a more comfortable manner. When she emerged from her room he looked up at her and said, "Now I can talk to you on a more professional level." laughs, "Why weren't you at work today? You never miss. I don't think that you've ever had a day off since I started here."

"I had my first day off. After my little out burst in the lunch room the other day, Chief Fry decided that I should take regular days off from now on, so I don't blow up at a student anymore." "Wow, so once a week…" Dannie interrupted him in mid sentence, "A month. One day a month I will have off. I can't stand to have too much time to myself, so I want to spend as much time as work as I can."

"Weird." "What?" "I just heard that the fighting ring is holding a monthly tournament now. There's one tonight, we should go. I bet you would like it. Maybe see some moves that even you've never seen?" "I can't, I have errands that can't wait any longer. But I also don't think that you should go either. You don't know what all goes on there, and who's to say you could even get in." "I'm going to try anyways, whether or not if you agree to come with me tonight, Destroyer."

"What did you say, there at the end?" Dannie looked as confused as she sounded.


	6. Secrets Revealed

"Just that, whether or not you come tonight, I'm going to the tournament tonight. I want another crack at the Destroyer, but I want everyone to see me beat you." "How did you find out?" she questionlly asked.

"I've known for the better part of the time I've been here at the precinct. That first day, during class, one of the guys from the class was warning me to not piss you off. He told me that not only did you teach police officers how to fight well, but you also ran an underground fighting ring and was its undefeated champion." Derick said as fast as he could trying to get everything out before it all registered with Dannie. _He had been trying to piss me off that day. He wanted to test my strength. I guess he judged wrong._

Dannie looked at the clock hanging on her wall near the door, it read 5:30 p.m., she had to change and get ready for the tournament tonight.

"Fine, if you want to come tonight, just realize two things. You had better have the grand to get inside the door, and you better be ready to fight. Not one person, except me, gets in the door tonight without buying in, and everyone who buys in fights." Derick looked at her with shock. She never looked so determined before.

"Why does everyone have to but in, and why is it so much tonight?" "Just think about it. The tournament starts at six o'clock and goes until everyone had fought. Everyone who comes usually want to fight, but there isn't enough time to fit them all in, so tonight everyone gets the chance. The reason the but in is so much higher is that the champ takes home half the pot, and the prize money dwindles down from there. This way, the top fighters after the champ, me, are able to take home some money tonight as well." she hurriedly answered. "But if I don't get ready fast, and get down there faster, than it won't matter because tonight won't happen until next month."

Derick went outside to wait for Dannie to get ready to go. He had decided, without saying anything to Dannie that he would drive the both of them to the fight. She was in too much of a hurry to argue with him when she left the house.

The tournament night was a big success. Over twenty people showed up including Derick, and there weren't any problems with the new rules for the night. People were just glad that everyone was given a chance to fight, but were surprised that other people besides the Destroyer took home prize money.

Dannie, of course, emerged victorious and took home over ten thousand dollars that night. Derick on the other hand, only took home twenty-five hundred. Both of them were in the second to last fight, but he lost to Dannie's next opponent. Derick would have been named fourth place, but he had almost won his battle, and only lost by just a little. Dannie hadn't had to put forth any real energy toward defeating him, so Derick was named third and the other guy was named forth.

Dannie drove home because Derick couldn't see out of one of his eyes. He had cuts, scrapes, bruises, and a cracked rib; he looked like crap, but she felt like it. The dude in her last battle pulled off a couple of dirty punches, and a dirty kick as well. he almost broke her jaw, but he seriously bruised her right shoulder blade when he pulled off that kick. Derick had been watching the fight with his one good eye and nearly jumped into the ring to help her, but for the last fight, there is a cage placed over the ring so no one can interfere with the fight, not even a ref. The cage is only allowed up after someone goes unconscious.

After he kicked her in the shoulder blade, it took most of her strength to not scream from the pain, and if she hadn't gotten as enraged as she did, then he would have won, and there was absolutely no way she was going to allow that to happen. She stood back up after having fallen from the force of the kick, threw as good an upper cut as she could manage with her shoulder causing immense pain with every movement, and knocked him on his ass. Then she fell down next to his unconscious body and punched him across the face for added measure just as the cage was being lifted up to officially end the fight. Everyone was given their prize money, and the building was emptied by three o'clock the next morning.

When she got them to her house, Dannie cleaned his cuts and scrapes, and did what she could for his cracked rib, despite her own injury. Derick fell unconscious on her bed, so she slept in the living room on her couch, after making a promise to herself. "I will never allow him to fight in the ring again so long as I am the one running it."

Derick stayed in her room the entire next day. Dannie gave him a strange liquid the night before and made him drink it. It tasted horrible, she knew that, but it helped him sleep throughout the night without any pain, and when he awoke the next evening he was sore from sleeping all day without moving any muscles, but that was all. He still had cuts and scrapes, but he wasn't bleeding, and there wasn't nearly as much pain as there had been the night before.

Dannie came in the room carrying a tray with some hot soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a very large glass of water. Derick smiled at the sight and Dannie stopped him from saying anything, "Don't move around too much, and don't try to speak right now. That liquid may help your body heal faster, but it seriously dehydrates you, so if you try to talk before you get some water in your body, I won't be able to hear anything you say. I should know, Kyra used to give me that stuff all the time when I first started training as a kid. She hits far harder than I do during class." She set the tray down on the little table next to the bed and said, "Here you go. Eat, you've been out for over twenty hours, your body needs food."

Derick looked at her in surprise. "Don't worry, I told the chief most of what happened. He understands, and hopes to see you tomorrow ready to go. But that won't happen if you eat up and get some more rest." Derick took a long gulp of water, felt his body cry out for more, and finished off the 32oz glass of water in just two gulps. Dannie didn't look too surprised, but instead took the glass and went to fill it back up. As she was leaving, Derick forced out, "Thank you, for everything." and commenced eating while she was gone.

When she got back, she had a full glass of water in one hand and a bottle of aspirin in the other. She offered them to him and sat down on the edge of the bed. After he polished off the other glass of water he sat it down on the table next to his empty bowl of soup. She took the tray away, rinsed off the bowl and plate, and brought him another glass of water. For the rest of the night they talked.

"Why do you do this night after night? I mean, how can you?" "Well, I was trained for every situation. I have incredible stamina, and I am usually the one inflicting all the damage, I don't usually take any. That guy just threw some dirty hits, I should learn to watch my opponents more closely, if I had, he would have been on the ground before I had gotten hit that last time."

"But why did you start doing this in the first place? No one seems to know. I asked everyone who knew about the ring why you would put yourself through this kind of torment every night, even if you can fight as well as you do. I couldn't get a straight answer out of any of them." "Well, that is a story that I reserve for only the closest of friends and family, and you are neither. It's time I checked those wounds again. I'll be right back."

As she went to get up, Derick grabbed her wrist, pulled her back to him, and into a kiss. Dannie almost pulled away, but she had secretly been hoping that he would do this, so she relaxed and just allowed it to happen. _I can't believe she isn't fighting or pulling away. I should have done this before. _Derick ended the kiss before it went too far and said leaning his forehead against hers, "So does that make me a close enough friend now, or do I have to take this farther?"

"This rates you as close, but not close enough. And anyways, you can't do too much more without hurting yourself in the process. Now either you let me go, or I'll break your hand. I need to get the med kit to check your wounds and it's in the other room."

Derick let her go, she got the med kit, checked and rebandaged his wounds, and before she knew what to think he had her underneath his body. They both knew that she could easily throw him off of her, but she knew if she did, it would only end up hurting him more than he already was, so she didn't.

He could feel her start to breath heavily, and she could feel every muscle in his body, most importantly, the ones in his almost bare chest. "Dannie are you alright? Your breathing changed when I did this." he said with real concern in his voice. "I'm fine. You just startled me, that's all. Please move off of me, I don't want to hurt you by throwing you off." He leaned down and covered her mouth with his, and felt her body give in. He put one hand on the side of her neck for support and the other on her hip for his own pleasure.

Dannie pushed him up, but not off, to stop him from going too far. "Please get up now?" "Fine, but only if you agree to answer my questions, truthfully, like you would your closest friends." "Fine! Whatever! I don't care, just move." He rolled off onto the other part of the bed as promised, but Dannie was too out of breath to move off the bed, so she laid next to him, side by side, while answering his questions for the rest of the night.

"So, I already know the big secret of who you are, without having to ask, so you get a reprieve. But why do you do this night after night?"

"You have to understand, I have a very sorted childhood, but that is a different story. I didn't grow up in a normal home, and that can cause some serious anger-management issues, so my Aunt Kyra started training me, when I was a teenager, in hand to hand combat. It helped, but then a couple of years ago, she married and left. I had no way to control my anger, so I started hanging out at gyms and training grounds, and eventually, one of the gyms that I frequented became my base of operations and people would just show up to watch and start betting. I needed the money, they wanted to get something specific from me, and they all thought that they could win. Women didn't start fighting until I had money and a reputation. They wanted money for winning, not sex. But there is also another reason. My father is best known for his fighting skills, among other things, and I had always hoped that he would seek out this girl who claimed to be the best fighter, and atleast then I would be able to see him for more than a fleeting moment. That's why."

"So who's your dad?" Dannie got out of the bed and left the room. Derick could hear her rustling through some papers and heard her yell out, "Damn it! Where is it?" "Dannie?" Derick said questionlly. Dannie returned to the room carrying a piece of paper. "Is your dad a piece of paper, or is he a man?" he laughed at her. "Very funny. My father is," she handed him the piece of paper, it was an old warrant, "Richard B. Riddick, escaped convict, murderer, savior of the Helion System, and new ruler of the Necromungers."

Derick looked as sick as a dog after eating an entire box of Valentine's Day chocolates. _She's his daughter. It can't be. she looks nothing like him. _"It can't be!" he screeched. "What's wrong with you? you look like your going to throw up." "There is no way in hell you are Riddick's daughter! I refuse to believe that I would be attracted to this pig's daughter!" Dannie left the room.

Derick suddenly realized that he had said that last part out loud and attempted to run after her. By the time he caught up with her, she was outside in the backyard standing next to a grave. "See mom, this is why I never allowed anyone to get too close. Why I never told anyone who my father was. I knew that no one would ever accept me." Dannie was saying this to the grave.

"Dannie, please forgive me. I should never have said those things, I shouldn't ever have been thinking them. Now you probably won't accept me when I tell you my secret. That is the reason why I had a hard time accepting what you told me. Dannie, look at me." "What does it matter if I accept you, it's not like you could care for me." she said through tears.

"Dannie, I am a merck and my crew and I are going after your father. I was sent in as an undercover cop so I could gather information on your father's whereabouts before we set out again." "Today is the fourteenth anniversary of my mother's death."

"Do you understand what I am saying?" Dannie looked up into his eyes and said, "Take me with you."

**A/N: I swear, Riddick is coming very soon. I just had to get up to the point where I could introduce him and everyone would at least know why things were happening the way they were happening.**


	7. Riddick Returns

**A/N: Sorry it has taken so long before Riddick finally gets to show up, but I had to put in a back story so everyone would hopefully know where everything is coming from. Hope you enjoy.**

"Are you sure? He is your dad and my crew and I aren't going after him to bring him home to you or anyone else. We plan to take him to the slam that will pay the most for his ass and leave him there." Derick told Dannie holding onto her shoulders to make sure she understood everything. She looked up into his eyes and said in the clearest voice she could muster, "I said take me with you. I want to help you catch him. I want to put him in slam myself, have him see me make a deal for the best price. I want to be the one to lower him into a hole and never have to see him again. I want him to see just how strong his daughter really is." _He has to pay for the murder of my mother._

He looked down at her with surprise and joy flowing through his body at this news. _I won't have to try to trick her to get her to come along, she wants what I want. She'll help, she wants to be apart of the mission._ Derick leaned down and kissed her for a long time, like he never wanted it to end, but, alas, it had to. "I'll go talk to the crew, and my captain. We could always use some muscle, especially if there are some brains attached to them. I'll be back as soon as I can." Derick went to leave, but turned back around and grabbed her for another kiss, but a much more excited one. He pulled back and smiled at her, then he left to go talk to his captain and crew, leaving Dannie alone near her mother's grave.

"Mom I know that you don't approve of any of this right now, but I promise that when everything is said and done, you will be proud of me." twig breaks in half Dannie turned around startled by the sound. "Derick? Is that you?"

"No, it's not Derick. Sorry to have startled you. I would have said something, but you seemed to be having a private moment with your mother, and I didn't think it right to disturb you." said a man that Dannie could not easily recognize. "So you thought it right to eaves drop on my private conversation with my mother? Yea, you got that right." Dannie said with a sarcastic tone in her voice.

"I didn't mean to eaves drop, I was just trying to listen for when you left so I could pay my respects to Zara without anyone around." Dannie gave the stranger a long hard look over, just trying to find something about him that might ring a bell in her mind about who he might be. Dannie was standing on a slightly elevated platform next to the grave site and he was standing at least thirty feet away on the slightly uneven ground and Dannie was looking him directly in his goggle covered eyes, so she knew he had to be tall; somewhere around six foot three inches, give or take two inches. The stranger had an upside-down triangle shaped upper body which meant that he was very well built. He had massive shoulders which held onto his even more massive arms. His legs looked like two well defined logs of lumber. He was wearing pitch black army boots, chocolate brown cargo pants, a low cut black shirt, probably a muscle shirt, and a long, dark, hooded cloak that covered his most of his body loosely. But then again, most of the people she fought at the ring wore something to that degree every night, so there wasn't much originality to his wardrobe. The only thing that really stood out about him was his bald head, more than likely shaved to be that way, and his perfectly groomed face.

He walked up closer to her and asked, "Are you Dannie?" She looked at him with surprise in her eyes. "How do you know my name?" "Don't worry, I'm not a stalker or anything like that, I just remember having met you before. I came here once looking for, her, but instead I found you. You were very young, so you may not remember me, but I was really close to Zara."

"Stop, just stop! I knew all of my mother's friends, and most of her enemies, and you don't ring any bells. What is your name?" "It doesn't really matter what my name is, I only came here to pay my respects to her, alone. Please leave so I can, and then I'll leave."

"Why didn't you come during the day while I was at work if you wanted to be alone? Because now that I am home and about to leave in the morning, I am spending my last few hours with her out here, so you can either do what you came to do with me out here, or you can leave." "Listen child, I only want a few moments alone out here. It's not like I'm asking you to leave for the rest of the night. When I'm done, then you can freeze out here for all I care."

Dannie walked right up to him, got in his face, and said, "No one ever talks to me like that in my own home," and punched him right across the face, "no one." She turned back to go over to her mother, but he stopped her by grabbing her wrist, "No one ever hits me and gets away with it," and back handed her across the face, "not even snot nosed little brats. Besides, you hit like a little girl." "The first one was a warning shot, now I'm pissed off."

The fight continued. Punches and kicks were thrown, blocked, and landed. He got her in a headlock and took a long sniff of her hair, "You smell just like her." Dannie elbowed him in the gut to get him to let her go, and landed another kick with her heel hitting his shoulder blade and knocking him down to the ground. She leaned down, got him in a headlock and said in his ear, "Don't ever do or say that again. How would you know what she smelled like? I was her daughter and I barely know." He threw her over his shoulder and she landed on the ground on her back. "Don't assume that you were the only person who was ever close to her.", the stranger said vehemically in Dannie's ear, "Kyra would be ashamed of you for even allowing me to get you to the ground after having spent all that time training you to fight as well as you do. Your even better than your mother was after I trained her and Kyra."

Something jogged in Dannie's memory. She reached up and removed his goggles to reveal his silver eyes. She looked into them and punched him again while he was refocusing his eyes to the light still in the night sky, and knocked him away from her. She got up and ran a couple of feet away from him to have a chance to think back to all of the stories that she had heard as a child.

_**After we got off that planet, Riddick stayed around for about a month and never left her side. They were either in their room, or outside with me, training. I wanted to learn how to fight and Riddick was the best person to teach me, but he also taught Zara, a few basic things. Just enough to help her get by in life, so she could at least defend herself. I got the more advanced training. When he left it broke Zara's heart and she grew bitter, so she started training with me and she even got better than me.**_

While she was putting the pieces together, Derick came back and he recognized the stranger right away. He pulled out his gun and yelled out, "Dannie get down, it's Riddick!" and he shot at him, but hit nothing. Riddick ran as fast as he could, but didn't go very far, just out of their visual range. Derick ran over to where Dannie was and fell down at her side to check her over for any bruises or slash marks. "Don't worry, he didn't pull out his shivs, we were only fighting hand to hand combat. It never registered that it was Riddick. I didn't even see his eyes until I ripped off his goggles. Did you get him?" "No, but let me get you inside so I can check you out more thoroughly, and get you warmed up."

Derick led her inside to her room, sat her down on her bed while he looked her over closely. She didn't have a scratch on her, but she did have a couple of new bruises forming fast. He gave her an aspirin and a glass of water to help get it down, and told her to get some sleep. As he was leaving, Dannie asked, "Derick, will you lay down with me? I still feel a little shaky and I don't want him coming in here if I am alone." "Sure," he laid down, put his arms around her, and kissed her on the top of her head, "good night Dannie." She would have answered, but she was already out cold with her arms wrapped around his chest, tightly. "I love you Dannie." he whispered to her so as not to wake her.

**Bang! Crash! Clang! Argh! The sounds of a battle in a metal ship with metal weapons. I can see the entire thing from were the guard has me as he is taking me through the ship. The Lord Marshall and a bald man with silver eyes are fighting. I think that I have met this man before, but it has been so long since then, and the meeting was only for a brief instant. I can see Kyra and my mother standing in the crowd watching helplessly as the fight proceeds. Kyra is in the back of the crowd standing on a small platform so she can see above everyone's head, and my mother is closer to the front of the crowd, watching and waiting for the bald man to make his move and kill the Lord Marshall, but he is having trouble, the Lord Marshall is too fast and the man can't land a single punch. Mom looks around, but never sees me high above everything in the rafters watching as she picks up a spear and rushes over behind the Lord Marshall and stabs him in the back. She gets thrown into a pillar of blades, falls to the ground bleeding to death, but no one cares enough to go over and try to help her. I get away from the guard and run down to her limp body, but I can't get through the crowd. Kyra makes it over to her, but not until Riddick has killed the Lord Marshall and is over there himself. They both talk to her, taking her last breaths away from me. I hear mom call out the man Riddick, and he tells Kyra to leave. She does, but never sees me standing there. Riddick looks up and sees me standing there though. I am wearing the Necromunger garb, but I don't have the mark on my neck yet. We make eye contact for a brief moment, and I can see the disgust in his eyes. He looks away from me and I fall to my knees crying over my mother's dead body.**


	8. Alone

It was still nighttime when Dannie woke up, but didn't make any sudden movements or sounds, so Derick stayed asleep. She got out of the bed carefully and went outside to be near her mother and cry the tears that she couldn't in front of Derick or anyone else.

"I am so sorry that I couldn't save you all those years ago. If I could have, things would have been different. I wouldn't feel so alone all the time, and I wouldn't be so angry all the time. I miss you so much mom." she said through the tears that were pouring down her face.

Riddick came up behind her and put his arms around her to comfort her. She turned into his hard chest and realized that it wasn't Derick, but he was holding onto her so tight and yet so gently that she didn't really want to leave his arms. She stopped crying, and pushed him away from her. Dannie looked up into his silver orbs, memories of her dream began to flood her mind, and Riddick could see the anger rise in her eyes. She backed away from him disgusted with herself that she would have shown so much weakness to anyone, Derick included, and she swung at him.

She remembered everything that Kyra had ever taught her about fighting. All of the different strategies, the combinations, and how to disarm your opponent to make sure that you have the upper hand in any situation. Dannie was a young, fast, Furyian female, with the strength of years of built up rage and guilt fueling the fire within. Riddick was a father trying to help his only daughter get past the anger and frustration of nineteen years without a father and fourteen years without her mother around.

All Dannie wanted was to kill him right then and there, but she had never been taught how to kill, so she just settled for beating him to a bloody pulp. Riddick knew that he could easily take her on and win, but thought that it would help his cause if he didn't fight back, but that only pissed her off more. At least if he fought back she would have some respect for him, but all he did was just stand there and take every punch and kick that she threw. She would have beat him to death, except she had been going at such a high pace for so long, and the rage was beginning to be too much for her, so she collapsed in the middle of a punch. Riddick caught her before she fell to the ground, and carried her into the house and laid her on the couch, not knowing where her bedroom was. He stayed next to her the entire night making sure that she wouldn't hurt herself.

Riddick put in a call to Kyra after he was sure that she was completely asleep. "Kyra, I found her, I need your help now. She figured out who I am, and there is a merck here. She is unconscious on her couch right now, but I don't know how long she will be out, and I don't know if I can do this. She's angrier than I thought she was going to be. Get here quick. I'll explain everything when you get your ass here."

Night passed into morning and when Dannie woke up again, a very worried Riddick was hovering over her. He sat down near her and said, "I called Kyra." Dannie tried to get up, but was tied down to the couch, "I had hoped that she would have been here by the time you woke up, so we didn't have to go through all of this, but when she gets here and you calm down, I'll untie you." "It takes a month or more to get here from Helion 3, are you going to leave me like this the entire time?"

"It doesn't take that long if you are already on the planet. How else do you think I was able to find you? It's not like I knew what you looked like or where you lived. Was I just supposed to go around for another nineteen years knocking on doors and trying to track you down only knowing your name?"

"Riddick, let that girl go!" Kyra said bursting into the house. "Kyra!" they both said at once. Riddick got up and went over to give Kyra a hug which sent shivers down Dannie's spine. "Go and untie her before she gnaws through the ropes on her own." Riddick went back over to Dannie, undid her hands first, then her body, and last her feet. When her feet were free, she got all the ropes off of her and kicked Riddick in the head to get him away from her. Dannie ran to her room to try to find Derick to help her, but he was already gone.

Kyra came after Dannie, hoping that having raised her would help in this matter. "Dannie, I told your father to get rid of him so we could talk to you without him poisoning you against us both." "Don't call him that, he's not my father, he's just a sperm donor, and he fucking sucked at doing that." "But Dannie that's who he is. He is your father." "No! I said don't call him that! He's not my father, if he were my father he never would have left after he found out about me. Riddick is just a fucking bastard who can't keep it in his pants!" Dannie was hysterical and Riddick heard everything that she said about him.

"Dannie calm down or he'll come in here and make you regret those words himself." Kyra said in a calming voice. "Fine. But let's talk about something else. Where were you yesterday?" "What do you mean?" "Yesterday? The anniversary of my mother's death. You didn't even give me a call to let me know that you weren't coming!" "I was on my way here. We had a hard time getting a ship chattered this time."

Dannie had backed Kyra up against the door to her bedroom by this time, and after the last thing she said, Dannie slammed her opened fist, palm down, onto the door right next to Kyra's head, scarring the woman to near death. Kyra had witnessed first hand what Dannie could do if she were pissed off enough, and she had always hoped that she would never be on the receiving end of any of that. "DON'T EVER lie to me again! You know what I do to liars, so don't make me do that to you." At the sound of Dannie hitting the door, Riddick came to the back of the house to Dannie's room to make sure that there wasn't any killing, but only found a pissed off Dannie and a frightened Kyra.

"If I didn't love Cameron so much, I would have punished that lie right away, but instead you get a warning. Now everyone leave my home right now! Tell the boys that I said hi. Take your Riddick with you and everyone leave me alone!" Riddick pulled Kyra out of Dannie's line of vision and told her, "Get back to your family, I'll deal with my daughter." "I'm not your fucking daughter! Get away from me! Just leave me alone!"

Riddick put his arms around her, holding her from behind so she couldn't bite him or anything like that. "Get away from me! I don't need anyone, ever! I just wanted to be left alone. I never wanted a family, or friends. People just complicate things. They just make things worse. They always hurt you and you hurt them. I just want…" Dannie collapsed in his arms, and Riddick fell to the floor with Dannie in his arms and just sat in the doorway to her bedroom trying to keep her as calm as possible. "I guess this is my punishment for leaving you behind after Zara died. I will get my daughter back, even if it takes another nineteen years before you call me dad. I'm not leaving you behind ever again. I promise." Riddick stayed there on the floor, uncomfortable as all hell, just holding Dannie in his lap like a little girl holds her doll when it is supposed to be asleep, and stroking her hair.

Hours rolled by and the daylight disappeared. Dannie woke up wrapped up in Riddick's arms with her own arms wrapped around him. She could vaguely remember all of the yelling she had done, but she mostly just remembered how bad she felt. Riddick felt her stir and held on tighter. "Please let me go? I have some things I have to do tonight. I don't have time for this crap right now." Dannie said in a groggy voice. "If you expect to get up right now, than you had better quit with this attitude of yours and start showing some respect to Kyra and myself."

"Tell you what, I will apologize to Kyra for yelling at her, but not what I said, and you can kiss my ass, because you have done nothing to earn any kind of respect from me." Dannie pushed off of him and stood up but fell into the wall. She hadn't regained blood flow to most of her body, so she was walking like a new born fawn. Riddick got up and had to keep catching her until she got back her balance, which was no small feet in itself since she was fighting him the entire time and he was having the exact same problem, he could just cope better.

"Where do you think you are going at this time of night? The only things that are open at this time of night are things that you don't have any reason to be going to." Riddick said in his most father like tone. Dannie just laughed him off, "So you think that you can tell me what to do. I am nineteen years old and have managed quite well for the best two years on my own. If don't mind, I have to change, and then I am going to a gym to help relieve some stress that you two put my body through."

_I can't think of anything that could go wrong at a gym that should cause alarm. And at least it is a crowded place, so no one would try anything stupid, and she can take care of herself. _"Fine, but be careful." "Right. Don't wait up for me. I'll be back at my home whenever I decide that I can stand the sight of you again."


	9. Deception

It was four a.m. when Dannie stumbled in the front door of her home. Riddick had been asleep on the couch, partly because he didn't have a room of his own, and partly because he was waiting for Dannie and fell asleep right there on the couch. Dannie was in so much pain and she was completely exhausted that she had forgot that Riddick was in her home and that he might have been asleep at this time of the morning. The sudden movement in the house woke Riddick up, and he found Dannie laying on the floor, blood coming out of her mouth, and bruises all over her face.

"I knew I should have gone with you tonight. Why didn't I go with you?" he said to an unconscious Dannie. Riddick picked her up and put her on the couch and frantically searched around for a med kit. When he finally found it under the medicine cabinet in the hallway outside her bedroom, Riddick returned to her and started cleaning and bandaging her up. "Dannie everything is going to be alright. I'm here, I'll take care of you. Daddy's here."

_cough_ "If you know what's good for you, you'll back up, let me up, and never call yourself that again in my presence." Riddick was just relieved that she wasn't going to die, that he did what she said, but stopped her before she got too far away, "I'll talk to you after you've had some sleep. Good morning." Dannie walked off to her room, and Riddick laid back down on the couch and conked out.

On her way to her room, Dannie noticed what time it was, four thirty a.m., and realized that she wasn't going to get any sleep tonight. She had class to teach this morning, someone to beat up for not showing up last night at the fight, and she'd have to find a way to get passed Riddick before she could get to work.

She decided that since sleep was off the menu, she was going to have to make some of her special coffee. She knew it took at least an hour to brew, and about fifteen minutes to prepare, but she had to get ready for work, and be there in about two hours. Normally, she would have just called the chief and told him that she needed the day off so she could heal, but there was no way she was going to stick around to talk to Riddick today. So as the old saying goes, "Desperate times, call for desperate measures.", and this was as desperate a time as any.

The "coffee" is a mixture of three drops of pure adrenaline, which you can buy on the streets like you would Speed or any other kind of narcotics, but it isn't as pure, or you can get it from private labs that use it for research, it costs more, but it is a better quality, bold coffee, an extra shot of caffeine from ground up caffeine pills, a syringe full of liquid morphine, ground up pain pills for other parts of the body, all of which you can get as a deal from the labs when you buy the adrenaline. You mix the ground up pills in with the coffee grounds and the other liquids in with the water, all of which are odorless and tasteless, so all you taste is the coffee. If the pills aren't ground up as fine as the coffee, than the "coffee" has a grainy taste so you put in your favorite flavored creamer and a ton of sugar to cut down on the taste. You take it with aspirin the first cup to help get the process started, and then at least every three hours to keep up with the pain. If you take it every hour, on the hour, than you'll never be tired or in any kind of pain, but it's not recommended. It has a way of really fucking up with a person's system. Taken every two hours, will keep you from feeling any pain, but you do run the risk of attempting to fall asleep.

Dannie was able to get everything prepared in her room so she didn't disturb Riddick, but she was afraid that the noise from the coffee maker would wake him up, or worse, the smell of coffee brewing would. If Riddick were to smell the coffee and wake up he might want some, and this stuff in the hands of a person who has either never had any, or has no reason to be taking the type of medication that she put in there, could very easily have a heart attack from the extra adrenaline alone and die. But at least he wouldn't feel any pain when it happened.

She put the "coffee" on to brew and went to get ready for work. The first thing she did was hop in the shower. Sure the hot water felt great, but she was afraid to allow herself to relax too much and fall asleep, then Riddick would drink some of the coffee and she would have another dead parent and no bounty money.

When she got out of the shower, she could tell that it was almost finished, and that Riddick was still asleep on the couch, so she went about her business getting ready as best as her aching body would allow. It took her forever to finally get dressed, socks were the worst part of the whole ordeal, all that fucking bending. She emerged from her room to go get her shoes when she heard the coffee maker stop. She wasn't thinking that Riddick might have woken up within the last fifteen minutes, so when she looked up and saw Riddick in the kitchen about to take a sip of coffee she scared them both when she burst out, "No, dad! Don't!" She ran over and grabbed the cup out of his hands before it hit his lips.

He looked at her in shock and asked, "What did you say?" "I said, No. Don't." "No you called me dad. Admit it." She gave him a death glare and said, "Don't be so sure. I don't even like it when someone else calls you my father. What the fuck makes you think I would call you dad?" "I don't know, but I heard you say it."

She poured his cup back into the pot, poured the pot into her thermos, and added the creamer and sugar. "Hey. That was my cup!" "No this was all for me. Not you. You can make your own later." "Make my own! You have enough there for an entire army to have two cups each. Why do you need so much coffee?" "I didn't get any sleep last night or this morning as you well know, and I don't like the coffee that they have at the station. Anyways, I don't have to explain myself to you. You are staying in my home.", she went over to the couch and put on her shoes, "I have to get to work."

Dannie stormed out of the house and slammed the door behind her. She got into her car, and drove to work barely acknowledging stop signs, and other cars on the roads. She made it there in record time with ten minutes to spare before her first class of the morning. She decided to take the most spread out dosage possible, every three hours, so she wouldn't seem different to any of her classes.

Her morning classes went by without any problems. Most of the class was either too tired to notice if anything was wrong with her and the others were too preoccupied with their up coming shifts to care one way or another. She had a break for lunch where she expected to see Derick, but he never showed up. The afternoon classes were always harder for her, she had just eaten and she was getting ready to go home, but today there was another problem. After lunch, the chief had called her into his office and they had a rather long chat about some things, but it was confidential, so when Derick cornered her on the way to the classroom, she couldn't tell him. When he showed up for class, she was so tired, all of her coffee was gone, and beginning to fell every bit of pain in her body, plus she continued to think about what had happened just before the class had started that she couldn't focus on what she was doing and Derick nearly knocked her out.

_**Derick catches her by surprise after she emerges from the chief's office and throws her up against the wall. He gets up into her face and says as forcefully without yelling as he can, "So what did you and the chief talk about?" "Nothing." "Then why are you sacred of me?" "I'm not scared, especially of you." He puts his hands on her hips and allows them to roam down to her ass, "Then why is your breathing getting harder?" "Because I am uncomfortable in this position, and you being this close is cutting off the air supply right here. Please move."**_

_**Dannie put her hands on his chest to try to move him away from her, but he closed the distance between them even more. Derick was beginning to act like a jealous boyfriend, which he definitely was not. Dannie was starting to feel like the nineteen year old she was. She knew that Derick was at least twenty six and he knew more about how to excite and scare a woman by just the way he acted. He leaned down into her neck and whispered in her ear, "If you were talking about nothing, then why did I hear my name mentioned a couple of times?"**_

_**Before she could get a word out, Derick started sucking on her neck and squeezing her ass. "We were just talking about how easy I've been going on you.", Derick stopped, "He wants me to stop going easier on you than everyone else. He thinks there is something going on between us. I told him there was nothing, and that if it seemed like I was going easier on you than everyone else, I didn't mean to and I would stop. See, I told we weren't talking about anything." Dannie pushed him back and walked into the class.**_

After the episode in class, Dannie cancelled the last class of the day and went home to get some sleep. She was exhausted and in an immense amount of pain, so Derick drove her home. By the time he got her home, she had already passed out so he carried her into the house, to her room, and passed Riddick. When Derick put her down, Riddick noticed the new bruises forming on her face and immediately blamed Derick for it. Not that he wasn't right in doing so, but he was just quick to judge him because Derick is a merck and Riddick hates all mercks.

"I never want to see you near my daughter again, you scum sucking merck." "I wouldn't talk about Dannie like that if I were you. If see finds…" Riddick grabbed him by his neck, shoved him up against a near by wall, and said, "What did you say?" "Well, you called me a scum sucking merck, and just before all of this happened, I was sucking on her neck and she was loving every minute, so I would watch what you say." Riddick tightened his grip on Derick's neck and lifted him into the air. "And if she hadn't pissed me off as much as she had, I wouldn't have had to beat her up so much, but she did crack a few ribs on me as payment, so I guess we're even. If she weren't unconscious, I might be in there right now, fucking her brains out. What do you think about that?" Derick said through gasps of air.

"There's no way in hell she'll have anything to do with you once she knows that your a merck." "What makes you think that she doesn't already know that I am?", Derick looked into Riddick's silver eyes almost sadistically, "She's known since you showed up that night. She knows that my crew and I are going to haul your ass in for the best price possible, and she wants to help take you down."

Riddick was going to break his neck right then and there, but Dannie regained consciousness and called out for Derick. He allowed Derick to go over to her, but stayed right outside the door to make sure that he didn't try anything.

Dannie didn't leave that night and neither did Derick, so Riddick posted himself right outside her door the entire night and even called Kyra for backup just in case he felt tired. The room stayed quite all night and all the next morning. Kyra had made some breakfast for all of them, Dannie's favorite, scrambled eggs, sausage, toast, and pancakes. Both Kyra and Riddick ate, and when noon rolled around and Dannie and Derick still hadn't come out of her room, Riddick opened the door, walked into the room, and yelled out, "What the fucking hell is going on here!"


	10. Betrayal

"What is it Riddick?" Kyra says as she runs to the back of the house fearing the worst. "Where the hell are they?" "What do you mean Riddick?", she said as she got to the room, "They're gone!"

"He must have taken her in the middle of the night. I thought you said that the room had been quite all night? Why didn't you hear anything?" "What makes you think they left on my watch? You might have fallen asleep for a moment and they left then. Did you ever think about that?"

"This isn't getting us anywhere. We have to find her before they find out who she is and try to use her to get to me." "Riddick," Kyra said putting her hand on Riddick's shoulder to get his attention, "if Derick is a merck, than he has probably already told his crew about her, and that he knows where you are. You need to get out of here now. If you stay here, than he'll be able to lead them right to you."

"But I can't leave her behind again. I can't leave unless I know nothing is going to happen to her. There's no telling what they'll do to her, especially since she'll be used as bait." "Riddick, I've seen the way she looks at him. He didn't kidnap her, and I don't think he'll let anything happen to her. I've seen how he looks at her." "Yeah, like a hungry dog looks at a bone. She's young and pure, they'll take advantage of her, and then use her to get to me. I have to find her." Riddick grabbed some gear that he had stashed away for an emergency and ran out of the house with Kyra following behind him.

**What happened that night…**

After Derick entered the room, he shut the door behind him so Riddick couldn't see what was going on, just guess. He crawled into the bed with Dannie and held her close to him. He could tell there was something on her mind that she wasn't comfortable bringing up, so he asked her, "Is there something that you wanted to share with the rest of the class?"

She looked up at him, smiled, and asked, "What happened to you the other night? I saw Riddick and Kyra the next day and she said that Riddick got rid of you, but wouldn't tell me anything else."

"Well, she was mostly right. When I woke up that night and you weren't in bed next to me, I got up and found Riddick hovering over you on the couch. I tried to get closer to see if you had any injuries, but he threw me out of the house with nothing more than the closes on my back and locked me out." "Oh! I see. So he did, "get rid of you". But, why didn't you come over the next day?"

"I tried, but by the time I made it over there, you had just finished yelling at Kyra, and she practically ran me down leaving in tears. You must have really scared her for that to happen." "She pissed me off something serious. She fucking lied to me about being on the planet already and why she didn't show up that night for the anniversary. I don't tolerate liars." "Well, anyways, by the time I got into the house, Riddick had a hold on you, and you were passed out in his arms. He might have tried to kill me if he hadn't had a hold of you, trying to keep you comfortable even though he was thoroughly uncomfortable himself. I think he was sitting with one butt cheek on the carpeted area and the other on the linoleum. He told me that if I didn't leave right away, he would make sure that I never saw you again. Not wanting to test him, I left."

"But why didn't you come to the gym that night?" "I was with the crew telling them about you and that you wanted to join and that I knew where Riddick was. They were very intrigued about you, and want to meet you tonight if possible. But only if you still want to help us bring Riddick to a slam, otherwise, I should be going, they are expecting me either way."

Derick leaned down to kiss her before he left. He had only meant for it to be a quick peck on the lips and then he was going to pretend to leave, but Dannie put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her. Derick was a little shocked, but he wasn't going to argue with her. He returned the kiss by pushing his tongue passed her lips and moving his body over hers. He put his free hand on her hip and allowed it to roam over her ass, and back up to waist almost touching the undertone of Dannie's breast.

Not wanting to be late for the meeting with his crew, he stopped before it got too far and said, "So are you coming, or are you going to make me late for no good reason?" "I'm coming, but we have to get passed Riddick, and I'll bet he's called Kyra to come help. How do you propose we do that?" Derick looked around the room, and leaned down for another kiss, "Does the window open?" Dannie smiled, got up, and opened it. "Get dressed and ready to go, we don't have much time before the captain begins to think that we aren't coming."

They climbed out of the window as quietly as they could, it was just lucky that Riddick had conked out, otherwise, they may have had a better chance of leaving if they had gone through the front door talking loudly the entire way. They had to walk the entire way because if they tried to take the cars it would have made too much noise and woken everyone up. They finally made it to the merck ship, the Andromekles, around midnight.

It was a four man crew; the captain, also the navigator, two gunners, Derick was one of them, and their muscle man. When Dannie saw them all she could do was laugh. _I know what Riddick would say if he saw this "crew" right now. 'A four man crew for me, fucking insulting.' I bet I could take them all down alone and not even break a sweat. _"What the fuck is she laughing at?" demanded the captain of the pitiful crew. "Dannie! Stop that! He doesn't take to kindly to people laughing at him if he hasn't made a joke. Sorry sir." "Yes, sir, I'm sorry. I wasn't laughing at you, just the size of your crew. I expected there to be more, especially if you plan to be going after Riddick."

"Well, if you plan to help us, than I think that we have just enough men to haul his ass in." "How exactly do you plan on me helping you? I know that I am strong, but if he's being chased, I'll bet my life that you'll loose at least half the crew. You need more than just four men and his daughter." "Not if we use you as bait and make him believe that the only way to save your life is if he comes quietly.", the two stronger men on the crew came up from behind her and grabbed her arms to restrain her, "See, we all know how much you mean to him, so if your in real danger, than he'll do anything to get you back safe and sound, even if he never sees you again. Tie her up boys!"

"Derick! Help me!" Derick came up to her, looked her in the eyes, kissed her as passionately as he could, and knocked her out, "Go ahead, but if you touch her in any other way than just trying to make this look real, you'll never touch another girl in your life. Understand?" The other three men just nodded and commenced to "working her over".

Riddick and Kyra left the house together, but spilt up to cover as much ground as possible. They searched all day, but since neither of them knew where Derick lived, when they had left the night before, or where they might have gone, neither of them found either Dannie or Derick. Riddick returned to the house first, he didn't want to get too far away and not be able to find his way back, most of the houses around her looked exactly alike and it can be hard to remember where you were going if there aren't any street signs or numbers on the houses. When he arrived at the house, he went inside to see if Kyra had made it back yet or if Dannie had managed to escape to get back home, but neither one was there.

He went back into the living room to wait for something to happen, and found an envelope that he had passed on his inspection of the house. He picked it up and found out that it was addressed to him and it smelt like Dannie. He opened it and found a polaroid of Dannie after they had beaten her up, and at the bottom it read:

**_She's closer to her mother now. Wish you were here._**

Riddick****dropped the polaroid on the table and ran to the backyard, hoping to find her still alive. He dropped down by her side, pulled out his shivs and cut her loose. "It's OK Dannie, I'll get you inside and you'll be alright." Dannie woke up in Riddick's arms and said, "I'm so sorry dad. I never should have left, but I had to. If we make it out of this alive, I promise to explain it all to you." _gun cock_

Riddick picked Dannie up and turned around to face Derick holding a gun to his face. "Hand her over to me, I'll take care of her, I promise." Derick winked at him fast enough so Riddick could see it, but not the crew. Riddick handed Dannie over to him and backed away from them all. The captain spoke up, "She didn't even put up a fight, are you sure she's your daughter?" Riddick started after him and the other gunner cocked his gun and pointed it Dannie, the captain said, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. He rarely misses a non-moving target."

Riddick stopped ten feet from the captain and put his hands in the air to show that he was giving up. "And she said that there was no way in hell just the four of us could bring you down, even if she were here to help. Cuff him boys, payday is coming soon!" Riddick stood still and allowed them to cuff him.

In all of the excitement, the other mercks had forgotten all about Derick and Dannie over by the grave. Dannie had woken up just in time to see Riddick being cuffed. She made Derick let her down, she hadn't forgotten that he was the one who started all this, but Derick didn't allow her to go far at all. He pulled her into his body, held her close, and whispered into her ear, "I told your dad that I would take care of you, and I don't break promises. There is a gun locked and loaded in the back of my pants, it's for you if you want to help me rescue your father. just grab it and start shooting. Cavalry is on the way, but we have to keep them busy so they can be arrested." Dannie looked up into Derick's eyes, nodded in agreement, and grabbed the gun from his pants and shot the two guys how were leading Riddick away and Derick shot the captain.

The chief heard the shots and an entire task force showed up and arrested the mercks before anyone was killed. Riddick was released and ran back to Dannie. They both said at the same time, "Are you alright?" Riddick pulled her into a hug that she would have normally protested to, but was too relieved to care who saw. Riddick was going to take her inside, but the chief insisted that she go see a doctor and she was sent to the hospital for a couple of days to make sure that she didn't have any internal injuries that might have caused her some trouble later. She was fine after she got a lot of rest and some real medical care. When she returned home, she was slightly different for her experiences, but not enough to concern anyone.

All of the mercks were sent to a triple max slam, all except Derick. He was sent back to his home planet in the Seaphra System, but no one would tell Dannie why. Until, one day there was a knock on her door…


	11. Explanations

**Disclaimer: Sorry I didn't put this in the last chapter, but I forgot. I borrowed that line from Chronicles. And to all of those people reading my story whom also watch Andromeda, Seaphra System is from there. Andromekles is from history and the movie Troy. And I also want to make apologies for the abruptness of the ending of that last chapter, but I didn't feel like that stuff was very important, but it was necessary enough to put in. So on with the story!**

It had only been a few days after her mother's anniversary that year that everything had gone down, not even a week. "I told you mom, once everything was said and done, you would be proud of me." "She's always been proud of you." said Riddick. "Yes, always been proud of you." said Kyra as she got up to them after all the commotion was over with.

Dannie watched as all of the mercks were taken away in custody, but when Dannie was being put into the ambulance, she saw Derick being uncuffed and put into a different ship. When the chief came to see her at the hospital, she asked him about it, but all he would tell her was, "It's none of your concern.", and "It's confidential." She spent about a week in the hospital just laying around and allowing her body to heal as fast as it could. While she was there, either Riddick or Kyra and Cameron were at her bedside, once Connor came, but he was never very comfortable around her, but then again, he hated hospitals.

When she got out of the hospital she was given the opportunity to either become a full fledged police officer, or continue on as the defense without weapons teacher. Her dream for so long had been to become a police officer and that was the whole reason why she volunteered to take this mission. The whole point was for her to infiltrate the last remaining merck crew and bring them to justice. Ever since the Necromungers had been defeated, crime had become almost nonexistent and there was no more need for the mercks of the universe. Mercks were now considered criminals, and entire crews were taken to the very prisons that they had been selling the criminals they were catching, to.

But now after experiencing what a police officer, especially an undercover officer, has to go through, she decided that she would rather just retain her previous position as the teacher. Besides, if she took the promotion, she would have to give up fighting in the ring and there was no way she could give up that and the class and not leave a trail of bodies behind her on those days where nothing goes right.

Kyra, Cameron, and Connor all went home after Cameron had his second birthday party, and Kyra had her second child, a little girl named Kara. They were just going to wait until Riddick and Dannie were settled in and not trying to rip eachother's heads off all of the time, but that took longer than Kyra expected, and then Cameron's birthday was coming up, so they stayed so he could have a real party instead of some crappy thing on a ship heading back home. Then they were going to leave once they chartered another ship, but that took longer than expected, and by the time they had one ready, Kyra was too far along to be able to get on the ship; women over six months pregnant were a liability because unborn children past that point became deformed and disabled in chryo-chambers when they were born. So they had to wait until Kyra gave birth and then they were able to get the ship to go back home.

That whole thing with Kyra took about six months, and during that time, Dannie and Riddick formed a real bond, not quite as strong as a father-daughter bond, but it was up there in the top three of bond strengths. Dannie began to trust him and he began to let up on the paternal "instincts" that he thought he had. She trusted him enough that she even gave him the room upstairs that no one had occupied since Kyra left. It had been her mother's room when she was alive, and Kyra only stayed in there because she was like a mother to Dannie, but Dannie swore after Kyra left that no one would ever be allowed to stay in that room ever again. But Riddick needed a room of his own, and Dannie didn't feel right taking the bigger room upstairs, if her father was going to be staying here with her, so she told him he could have it, but only if he promised that he would take good care of it. "I promise that I will take good care of it. It will be as if she never left, as far as the room is concerned." He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.

Dannie went back to work, back to the life she had left behind for so long, back to work, the fighting ring, and no friends; the only difference was now she had her dad to come home to. She had to tell Riddick about the ring, it was the only way he would let her out of the house after dark after what happened the last time she went out to the gym that late at night.

"Back when Kyra left, I didn't have anyone around to help with my anger-management issues, so I started going to gyms and training groundsand ended upfinding people to fight. There were always plenty of people there willing to fight a young girl if only to put her in her place. Well, when I started beating people two and three times my size, I got a reputation as the Destroyer, and ended up starting an underground fighting ring. At first I had to put up myself as the prize if they won, but that never happened and I started winning around two thousand a night, at five hundred a fight. When I started working for the station, I cut down the hours at the ring and even started a monthly tournament so everyone would get a chance to fight. The first tournament was the first time that I ever almost got beat, and ever since then, the same guy has been coming back more and more to try to beat me outright, but I always manage to win by just the skin of my teeth."

"Wow! So are you going tonight?" "I have to, or else people will stop coming and I will loose a lot of money." "Can I come to see you fight?" "You can come any night except tournament night. On tournament night you have to pay to get in and you have to fight if you pay, but on any other night anyone can get in, you would just have to pay to fight and those nights have a very limited number of fights a night." "I don't want to fight and take away your championship, just yet, I only want to come see for right now. When we are more comfortable with eachother, then I might change my mind. Anyways, right now you would have to front me the money to get into the ring, and I couldn't do that to you."

Almost another six months went by, Dannie was getting used to telling people she was twenty, and finally beginning to get over Derick not being around all of the time. She was never told why he wasn't put in prison with the rest of the mercks on that crew, or where he was taken and why she wasn't allowed to even contact him. All of a sudden everything about him was "Classified", "Confidential", or "Top Secret". She had just about given up finding out anything at all, when one night there was a knock on her door…

_knock, knock, knock _Dannie opened the door and standing on the other side was Derick, his piercing blue eyes, sandy blonde hair, and his finely toned body. A whirlwind of emotions over took Dannie. She was happy to see him again, but pissed off that he didn't get what was supposed to befall his ass, she wanted to grab him and pull him into one of those kisses that she had been missing since he left, but she wanted to kick his ass lying to her and helping those fucks beat her to a bloody pulp, and she wanted to him to just hold her like he used to, but again he had lied to her and she didn't tolerate liars. Because she couldn't decide which way to go, she stood frozen in the doorway, until Riddick came up behind her and broke her out of her trance. Surprisingly, Riddick was the one who invited him into the house.

"Thank you for meeting with me Riddick. I have to admit that I was surprised when you had that ship sent to pick me up. I would have thought that you would have wanted me away for as long as possible." "Well, I said I would hear you out, but that doesn't mean that I want to wait around for a year or more for whatever you feel you need to tell me."

Dannie walked to the back of the house to her room, "Is she alright?" "She's none of your concern anymore. You came here to talk to me." "True, but I had hoped that Dannie would at least be in the room to hear what I have to say to you." "She wants nothing to do with you, and frankly, my patience is running thin. If you don't speak your peace quick, you won't speak it at all." Dannie walked back into the living room and sat down in between Derick and Riddick, "There will be no blood shed in this house ever. What do you want to tell us."

Derick wanted to reach over and kiss her lips, those beautiful lips. The last time he saw them, blood was spilling from them and she had a fat lip from the beating she was given. "You look good, almost like none of this ever happened." Dannie went to get up, "If that's all you want to talk about than you can just leave right now." "Please," he grabbed her wrist and Riddick grabbed his arm, "I have to explain what happened during that time. You have to know." "I've already tried to find out everything, but apparently I don't have high enough clearance to warrant an explanation!" "Only because I wanted to be the one to tell you myself." Riddick reasserting himself into the conversation said, "Allow him to tell his side of the story Dannie."

Dannie sat back down and allowed Derick to tell his side of the story. "Now, the story starts back when I volunteered for an undercover mission after my nineteenth birthday. I had been with the Seaphra 9 Police Force for about a year, and I was a hot head that needed a serious lesson in life."

"Seaphra 9, but you transferred from Helion 5?" Dannie interrupted. "Yes, but first I was with Seaphra 9 Police Force. That was my home planet, and when a deep undercover mission presented itself, I figured that it would be the best way to get Detective. But by the time I had any real evidence that this gang that I had infiltrated was actually a merck crew, we were gone from my system. You see, for as long as I can remember, my system has outlawed mercks, so we have to find proof of who they really are, and then we can arrest them."

"But if you had proof, why didn't you arrest them right away and take them in?" "Right, one nineteen year old boy, alone on a merck ship, with no backup. I'm sure I wouldn't have been killed on the spot by three other bigger men with more fire power. I had to wait until we got to another system that had mercks outlawed before I could even think of making a move again." "But it doesn't take seven years to get here from Seaphra System." "It does if you make stops at every other planet in the universe first." "Oh!"

"By the time we made it into the Helion System, I was just another one of the crew members. They trusted me enough to send me out on an undercover mission for them. I was to infiltrate the Helion System Police Force in order to gather information on Riddick. When I found out, while in Helion 5, that Riddick had a daughter, I was told to find her as well so we could use her for bait to capture Riddick and make sure that he went the entire way to prison without any problems. I just never expected his daughter to be you Dannie. When you told me, I almost scrapped the entire mission right then and there." Riddick got up to leave, he had already heard this story, and the rest of it he lived first hand, so it was rather boring to hear about and it brought up painful memories.

"After Riddick came into the picture, I had to report everything to the captain of the ship, but I also had to tell Chief Fry as well. You never came in the next day, and that was when I told the chief everything and to not tell you any of it, just that I was an undercover merck that you needed to take down." Dannie looked like she was ready to interrupt him again but Derick just put his finger over her lips to stop her from saying anything. "You had to believe that I was really one of the bad guys, or else you wouldn't have gone after me as hard as you did."

"But why did you hit me when you got me on the ship if you were one of the good guys the whole time?" "Before the guys had a chance to touch you, the captain pulled me aside and told me that they were going to have 'fun' with you before everything went down." "What!" "Dannie, if I hadn't stepped in and knocked you out before you fought them at all, then the captain had already authorized the men to rape you and beat you into submission. I couldn't allow that to happen, so when they tied you up, I knocked you out and warned them against trying anything with you or else I would have killed them on the spot." Dannie got up and walked around the room to help everything sink in faster before she would allow him to continue with the story.

"They never touched except to hit you, I swear. And when they were finished, I was the only one who came within twenty yards of you after that. Well anyways, after I placed you in the backyard next to the grave site, I put in a call to the chief and told him to get here as soon as possible, and that our lives were in danger. Riddick found you, and you know the rest of that part the story. I was put into protective custody until the trial and sentencing where finished and they were securely in the farthest triple max slam possible. I received word three months ago and hopped on the ship that Riddick chartered for me, and here I am."


	12. The Challenge

**Disclaimer: There is a line from Triple X and a name from Andromeda in this chapter.**

"And here you are. So now what? Were you hoping that after that story I would leap into your arms and tell you that I forgive you?"

"Maybe not leap, but at least forgive me."

"You lied to me. I don't deal with liars, I punish them."

"I understand that I lied to you, but I told you the truth, the entire truth, and the lies were all to save our lives."

"I don't care! You lied to me! I can never trust you again. I won't even be able to trust what I may or may not be feeling for you. I don't like to second guess myself, or anyone I'm with. You need to leave now."

"But…"

"But nothing. You need to leave now. And I never want to see you again."

Dannie got up and left the room. Riddick came back and said, "You should leave. If she finds you in here when she comes back out, then you'll regret ever coming here. She was just about over you completely, and she probably won't forgive me anytime soon for bringing you here. So do yourself and the rest of the people in this house a favor and leave until she contacts you."

"But I love her."

"So if you love her, let her go. If it was meant to be, then one day she will forgive you and you two can be together. But right now, you had better leave."

Dannie came back out of her room and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw that Derick was still in her living room. "Riddick get him out of her!" she demanded.

"I have been trying to get him to leave since you left the room! And the name is Dad, or have you forgotten?"

"Sorry, Dad, get him out of here, or call the hospital, because their about to get a new admittance."

Derick walked up in front of Riddick who had been standing in Dannie's line of vision blocking Derick from her. "Fine. I'll accept whatever you feel you need to do to me, but first I want some time alone with you. I don't even want Riddick in the house for at least a couple of hours. When I'm done, you can kill me if you really want to, but not until then."

Riddick looked over at Dannie, and she gave him a nod to show that she agreed with the deal and Riddick left the house. Derick ran over to Dannie and pulled her into a deeply passionate, overwhelming kiss. Dannie tried to struggle to get free of his grip on her body, but the longer it took to get free, the tighter he held, and the harder it became for her to get free. Finally, he had her completely relaxed in his arms, and he threw her onto the couch and covered her body with his.

_Oh God how I've missed this! Her lips. Her skin. The way she feels under my body! The way she tastes, like watermelon and honeydew. _His lips roamed down from her's and made their way to her neck and on passed to her collarbone and the very beginnings of her breasts. His hands went up under her shirt and began to undo the claps on her bra. "Wait! What's going on here? One minute I'm threatening your life, and the next you're all over me acting as if you never left and everything is fine between us, as if there ever was an us! Get off of me you idiot!" Dannie pushed him off of her, got up, and walked away from him to her bedroom.

"I didn't spend a year away from you, just so you could call me an idiot and walk away when I attempt to make things right between us!" Derick pushed himself off of the couch and stomped to the back of the house following Dannie to her bedroom. When he caught up with her, he tightly grabbed her arm, up high, close to the shoulder, spun her around to face him, and pushed her up against the door frame, causing Dannie to wince from the pain. Dannie pushed him away hard and he hit the door behind him with a thud.

Derick still had a hold of Dannie's arm, so when she tried to get away again, he pulled her into his body, whirled her around so she was backed up against the door, and pinned her there with his body all in one swift motion. "Like I said," he forcefully whispered into her ear, "I want time alone with you, but I hadn't planned on fighting the entire time. So if you would quit with this holier than though attitude and just give into those feelings for me that I know you have, this will go a lot smoother, and without nearly as much pain."

"And what did you have planned to do to me? Knock me out, beat me up, or rape me, because there is no way in hell I'll ever consent to being with you." Derick backed away from her and let her arm go. He looked deep into her eyes and saw all the pain that he had caused her. He could see how much she loved him, but there was more pain in her eyes than there was love, so he left her standing in her room, alone, as he left the house.

Riddick was almost certain that nothing was going to happen between them that day, so he didn't stay gone for long. He returned to the house after about thirty minutes and found only a sobbing Dannie alone in her room. "Dannie, are you alright? Did he hurt you in any way? Talk to me." "No, he didn't hurt me. I'm just… just… I don't know what I am." Tears began to stream down her face, and Riddick put his arms around her to comfort her as she told him the entire story.

That night Dannie spent it out by her mother's grave. It was the fifteen year anniversary of Zara's death and right now, all she wanted was her mother to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be alright. Riddick came out periodically to check up on her and bring her some hot cocoa or something warm for her belly. Kyra had called a week before and told Dannie that she wouldn't be able to come this year and paid her respects over the phone. Dannie fell asleep in a ball on the ground that night, but woke up the next morning on her bed. _I guess Riddick came outside last night and found me asleep, so he brought me inside and put me in my bed. He really is a great father._

Dannie got out of her bed and walked into the living room to find Riddick already up and having some breakfast. "Hey there sleepy-head.", he said kissing her on the forehead as she passed by him heading for the living room, "I was beginning to think that you weren't ever going to get up this morning." Dannie was still half asleep, so she instinctively went over to the couch and laid down, but instead of falling into the deep cushions of her couch, she landed on a hard body.

_Screams_ Riddick didn't budge, he knew what was about to happen. "What the fuck is going on here? Why is he here?" Derick had been laying on the couch asleep when Dannie plopped down on him and woke him up, scarring her awake in the process. "I told him he could stay the night. Calm down."

"You told him he could do what!" "He told me that I could stay the night." Derick said.

"Get out of my house right now!" "Fine, but it is Riddick's house as well, and he was the one who told me that I could stay."

"I don't care if he told you that you could stay, I told you that I wanted you gone and to never come back! So get up now, and leave!" "But…" "But nothing! Leave." Derick got up like she said, dropped the sheet that he was using as a blanket, and revealed that he slept in the nude. "Fuck!" Dannie picked back up the sheet and wrapped it around him. Derick looked down at her, _This will probably be the closest to her that I will get in a long time. _And as she was tying off a knot to keep it up so he could walk, he tilted up her chin to force her to look up at him, brushed some stray hairs out of her face, put his free arm around her waist, and kissed her ever so softly on the lips.

Derick pulled away and could see that Dannie was still waiting for the rest of the kiss. He leaned down to her ear and whispered, "I had hoped that the first time you saw me naked we would be having sex, not having an argument that we can't seem to get passed." Dannie was stuck between her desires and her will to make him pay for all of the lies and deceptions. Inevitably she chose her will, and continued the punishment. She leaned to his ear and whispered, "Did you enjoy that kiss?", Derick nodded his head in agreement, "Good, because that's the last time that will ever happen again." Derick got dressed and left the house. He didn't see Dannie again before he left, he didn't even try.

A month went by and Dannie was beginning to see Derick more and more around the station. After everything went down and was settled, Derick put in a request to be transferred to the Helion Prime Police Force, he had hoped that by now Dannie and him wouldn't still be fighting, but that was what was going on. She was still teaching the defense without weapons class and fighting in the ring in the evenings, but Derick was no longer one of her pupils. Plus, she combined some of her classes, so she now only had two classes to teach, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. She couldn't stand the idea of being in the same room with Derick, so she started going home for lunch, which was why she combined some of her classes. The chief was more than willing to oblige her request, but her students took it a little harder, now more of them had to get up earlier to come to class.

One night, while at home taking a breather from her life, it was a rare night that she closed the ring and had a day off from work, there was a knock at the door. _Knock, knock, knock _Dannie answered the door, expecting it to be Derick, but instead it was the fighter that nearly killed Dannie. He was dressed in a suit and tie rather than his usual fighting garb. This man is twice Dannie's size, about as tall as Riddick, just as muscular, and he is bald as well. Dannie had only just now realize who he was, he was Telimicus Rodda, the wealthiest black man in the entire system, but he had always put down Troy when he fought, so Dannie, nor anyone else ever thought anything of it.

"Hello everyone."

"What are you doing here Troy? And how did you find out where I live?"

"You know, it's amazing what you can find out when you have enough money. I have a proposition for you."

Dannie turned to walk away, "I don't care about anything you have to say."

Troy grabbed her around the waist to stop her, "Oh, but you will care about this."

Riddick ran over to help Dannie, but realized in mid step that it would make her look weak in front of an opponent from the ring, and she would kill him if he did that.

Dannie had her back to him, so he had easy access to her ears and neck, plus he could look down her top while doing whatever he chose to do. "It's about the ring. I have a challenge for you."

Dannie broke away from him, "I'm listening." She walked to her bedroom with Troy following behind her, "So what is the challenge? Please tell me it's not you, because you haven't beaten me yet and there is no way in hell that you'll ever beat me."

"It is me, but it's not for money. If you win, you keep your championship and I never fight again."

"And if you win?"

"If I win," he came closer to her, their bodies almost touching, "I get the championship and you."

"Me?" Troy nodded to confirm what she was thinking. "For how long?"

"Until I get tired of you." He leaned down and kissed her on the lips, and he could almost feel every heartbeat through them. "That confirms it."

"Confirms what?"

"Your a virgin. I had been expecting something to that degree. It will be my pleasure to bring you into womanhood. Do we have an agreement?"

Dannie hadn't noticed it before, but Derick had come over almost immediately after Troy, and he had heard the entire conversation between them. "Dannie, no! You can't agree to that arrangement."

"Too late! I accept. In two days time we fight."

"Fine with me." And with that Troy left.


	13. The Beginning of the End

Dannie went into her room, closed the door, and barricaded it to keep everyone out of the room. Derick was furious and Riddick could see that something had happened, so he tried to get it out of Derick knowing that Dannie wouldn't tell him anything that happened between her and Troy. "Derick! Where are you going in such a mood?"

"I'm going after that son of a bitch! He just challenged Dannie to an all out fight."

"So. She does that kind of fighting every night. She doesn't need you protecting her from that kind of thing."

"She does if that guy is the one who nearly killed her both times that she's fought him. Plus he is the one that nearly killed me the one time that I fought him."

Riddick sat Derick down and had him tell him the entire story. How the first tournament went, and what had happened that night at the ring the second night that Riddick was on the planet. Derick really had been there at the ring, he just didn't meet with Dannie that night like they had planned. "And this time they aren't going to be fighting for money, he managed to get her to agree to a different prize system."

"What's the prize for winning?" "She keeps her title and he never fights again if she wins, but if he wins, he gets her championship title and her, for as long as he wants her."

"You mean, he'll get to…" Riddick made some meaningless gestures, but couldn't get the words out, "if he wins?" "Yes."

Riddick got up off the couch and went to see Dannie in her room, but she had it barricaded and she wasn't allowing anyone in. "Dannie this is your father, let me in, I need to talk to you." No answer. Riddick commenced to banging on the door, "Dannie let me in, I need to talk to you now!"

"I'm not coming out and you can't make me change my mind! I've never backed down from a challenge, and I don't plan to start now!"

Riddick busted through the door and frightened Dannie nearly to death. Derick followed in behind Riddick hoping that together they could change her mind, but fearing that they wouldn't be able to. They walked over to the bed and sat down, Derick on one side and Riddick on the other.

"I'm not going to try to talk you out of it because I know that once you've made up your mind about something you don't change it, but just think about it from our point of view. We have both witnessed what he can do to you. Both times you have fought him, you have nearly died in the process. If I hadn't been here the second time, you would have died."

"We are just trying to keep you safe and alive." Derick butted in. "I've done everything imaginable to keep you alive, and I don't plan on allowing you to go through with this fight. Dannie we both love you too much to see you go through with this."

"If abandoning me from infancy and lying to me is how you show your love for me, than I don't want to be loved by either of you. And you don't have to watch me fight, I would prefer it if neither of you showed up to watch. You would only be a distraction for me, and I don't need a distraction being the reason why I lose this battle."

"Fine, we won't come."

"What!" said Derick confused out of his gourd.

"We won't come, but I insist on training you for the fight. Maybe if you learn some new techniques, he won't be so hard to beat and you can finally be rid of him."

"I appreciate the gesture, but this is my fight and I will fight it how ever I know how. And besides, I don't have enough time to learn any new maneuvers before the fight, it's in two nights."

"There will be enough time if we start training first thing in the morning and don't stop until the next night."

"Excuse me, but she would need to sleep sometime in between now and then. Plus, that would mean that you got to spend all the time with her, and I would never see her."

"Why would that matter? And who told you two that you were in charge of my life? I am perfectly capable of preparing for a fight without you two."

Riddick decide that it was time to put his parental foot down, "Dannie, either you allow me to train you during the day and spend time with Derick tomorrow night, or you will back down from this fight and that's final."

Both of them were shocked by Riddick's outburst, but Derick was happy that Riddick included time for just him and Dannie, and Dannie was furious at both of them, but relieved that they were going to attempt to help her with this fight. "Fine, but don't expect anything from me, either of you."

"Fine, now get some sleep, you have a big day tomorrow. Derick you can have the couch. And no arguments from either one of you. Good night." Riddick kissed Dannie on her head and left the room, but Derick didn't follow.

"I'll go into work tomorrow to explain to the chief what is going on, and why neither of us is going to be coming into work for a couple of days. So don't worry about any of that. I just need to ask you a question."

"What is it?"

"Why did you really agree to the fight? Was it because I said that you couldn't?"

"I do have to admit, that did seal the deal, but it wasn't the main reason. I am tired of constantly worrying about whether or not if Troy will be coming in that night to fight, and whether or not if he is going to win. You know I don't like to lose, so that would be torture enough for me, but having to become his sex slave will be worse."

"Than why did you agree?"

"I never back down from a challenge, and I know there is no way in hell that he will win. I'll die before I allow him to win. But since I don't plan on dying just yet, I guess I'll have to win. Then I can breath easier knowing that he will never darken my doorstep again."

"I think I understand. Good night." Derick turned to leave the room.

Dannie stood up and went to go after him but stopped herself and said, "Derick," he turned around, "will you stay in here tonight? I don't really want to be alone and I don't think that we would fit on the couch together."

"Of course I'll stay in here if you want me to." He came back and wrapped his arms around her and she wrapped her arms around him in return.

"But just know that nothing is going to happen."

"I know. I wouldn't expect anything to happen just because you asked me to stay in here for the night and you could very well end up dying in a couple of nights."

"You know what," she pushed away from him, "I change my mind…"

Before she could finish telling him to leave, he captured her lips with his and didn't let go until she was on his side of things. There was no way he was going to let her go this time. He had one of his hands behind her head keeping her from pulling away, and he had his other arm around her waist keeping her close to his body. It was almost as if he feared to end the kiss, so he kept it going longer and longer until they were both going at it desperately. Tongues were going in and out of mouths, and both were struggling for dominance in the situation.

All he wanted to do was take her now, but he didn't want to be the reason she couldn't focus up in the ring during the fight. He didn't want to finally feel her in his arms, under his body with nothing between them, not even any air, only to loose her to another man.

"Derick," she said as he had moved his way to her neck and jaw line, "can we stop for a sec and sit down? My legs are about ready to give out."

It took every bit of energy he had in his body to stop caressing her skin with his lips, but he managed to stop, if only for a moment.

"Dannie, I'm sorry, I…" She stopped him before he could get the rest of his apology out with a passionate kiss of her own. "Like I said, I only wanted to sit down because my legs were getting tired. That didn't mean that I wanted you to stop completely."

Derick kissed her again, but only as a good night kiss. "We should really get some sleep. You have a long day of last minute training to do and I have to go to the station and make apologies for the both of us for the next couple of days. As much as I want to continue this, I think it would be better if we waited for tomorrow night."

Dannie was about ready to yell at him, but she did see the point. If she gave into it tonight, than she wouldn't be able to think of anything else for the next day, and her dad would be able to kick her ass. But she was also afraid that if they waited until tomorrow night than she wouldn't be ready for the fight and she would end up losing. But she decided to go along with the plan and she was content enough to fall asleep in Derick's arms that night.

The next morning Riddick came in to get her up early, but with the way she was laying and with what little she was wearing, he thought it best to just allow them some time to themselves. Dannie was wearing her little pink spaghetti strap night shirt and baby blue night shorts, but the covers were only over her ass and lower back so he couldn't see those. As far as Riddick could tell, Derick was naked because he couldn't see any kind of shirt, and the covers and Dannie's body were covering his waist. It was still dark outside and all through the house, so Riddick had a hard time seeing her shirt so he thought that Dannie was naked as well, and with the way they were laying, it looked as if they had just had sex, so he didn't think it wise to wake them right away.

When they finally did wake up that morning, Dannie stumbled into the kitchen, still half asleep and bumped into Riddick. "Did you have a good night?"

"Yes! Very restful."

"Restful? I wouldn't think that after your first time you wouldn't be at all rested."

"First time? Oh! We didn't have sex last night, we just slept. That is what tonight is for."

"Alright. Good morning Derick."

Derick walked up behind Dannie who was fixing herself something to eat throughout the entire conversation, nuzzled her in her neck, and said, "Good morning beautiful. Did you sleep well?" Dannie just hmmed in a positive response. "Good. Because you won't be getting much sleep tonight." Derick turned her around to face him and kissed her, which turned into a little make out session right there in front of Riddick.

_Cough_. Nothing. _Cough, cough._ Still nothing._ **Cough, cough, cough!**_ They finally got the message and stopped what they were doing right then and there, but with a great protest. "Now that I have your attention. Dannie get something to eat and get ready for the rest of the day, we are way behind schedule and I would prefer it if you didn't loose this fight on account of being unprepared. Derick do whatever you have to do at the station and get back here as soon as possible, I'm going to need your help in some of the demonstrations. Alright people let's get going."

Everyone went about their own tasks. Derick hopped into the shower and got ready to leave for the station. Dannie had something to eat and when Derick got out of the shower she hopped in and got ready for a long afternoon with Riddick. Riddick went outside to get everything set up for the last minute training session. Dannie took her sweet time in the shower allowing the water to flow over her skin and relaxing her muscles to the point that she almost fell back asleep. Riddick knew that they didn't have anytime to horse around, but he didn't dare try to rush her around, it was her fight, they were just trying to make sure that she was completely prepared for it.

When Dannie got out of the shower she could hear someone inside the house, but thought that it was only Riddick and went about her usual tasks after emerging from her shower. After she got dressed, she headed over to the hallway outside of her bedroom to fix her hair so that it wouldn't bother her while she was outside, but also so she wouldn't have to constantly be fixing it. She picked up her brush to get it high enough so that it was out of her face, but as she looked into the mirror, she dropped her brush from the shock of seeing Troy standing behind her watching what she was doing.

"What the fuck are you doing here you bastard?" she said almost out of breath from the sheer shock of seeing him there.

"I thought that I should come over and make sure that you were still up for the fight. I wouldn't want you to claim tomorrow that you never really wanted to do this and that you were backing out. So here I am." He moved closer to her in an attempt to frighten her.

"Why are you afraid that I won't and you'll actually have to fight me? Don't worry, I don't plan on backing out."

He slapped her across the face harder than she had ever been hit. "You won't be talking to me like that once your mine."

"That is if you win the fight, and there is no fucking way I'll allow you to win. I'll die before I hand over my title to you!" He slapped her again across the other cheek.

"Don't forget, tomorrow night, and after that, I'll get you for the rest of my life. Our children will be perfect. Your beauty and strength along with mine, they will be able to dominate the entire universe."

"What the fuck have you been smoking? There will be no children and no for life. If you think that you'll get me for that long, than you really are dillusional, the longest that I would have ever stayed with you is maybe a month, after that, you would have been dead. Get the fuck out of my home, or I'll have you forcefully removed, after I break your dick."

He grabbed her around the neck, forced her up against a door frame, and lifted her up into the air. "Now listen to me. I always get what I want, one way or another, and you will be no exception. If I can't win you, then I'll have your father and boyfriend killed if you don't agree to be with me." He dropped her on the ground and walked away, leaving her gasping for air.


	14. The Calm Before the Storm

Derick walked into the room after passing Troy on his way out and saw Dannie sitting on the floor gasping for air. She saw him standing over her and held out a hand to try to keep him from going after Troy, but he left anyways. She went to get up and Riddick came into the house and found her still on the ground. "Dannie are you alright? Derick told me to come in here and see to you. What happened?"

Dannie was still gasping for air, but not as much, "Troy…was here. Derick…went after…help…up." That was all she could get out right then, Troy had crushed her larynx which made it hard to talk even being able to breathe. Riddick helped her up on her feet, made sure that she was alright, and went after Derick, and if he should happen upon Troy in the process, no one would begrudge him the opportunity to kick his ass.

Riddick caught up with Derick, but neither of them ever caught up with Troy, but they did run into a few of his hench-men, twenty to be precise. Riddick pulled out his shiv which never left his body, Derick picked up a lead pipe on the ground, and the two of them worked their way through the group of men. It had been a long time since Riddick had killed a man and now he was killing two or three men at a time, like he never stopped. Derick even killed a couple of men, but mostly just knocked them unconscious, he was never much for killing, not even to save or protect the woman he loved.

By the time that they made it back home, Dannie seemed fine, but they knew better. She was in the backyard working out in the little obstacle course Riddick had set up for her to train on. She never even acknowledged their presence, just kept going through the obstacle course again and again. Dannie knew that they had gone after Troy, but she didn't know what had happened after they left. They decided to leave her alone and allow her to focus on the task ahead of her.

She came in for a short break and there was Derick waiting for her to tell him all about her meeting with Troy. "So why was he here?"

"He came here to make sure that I wasn't going to back out of the fight."

"So why were you on the ground gasping for air when I came into the room?"

"Because I got smart with him and he decided to punish me."

"Tell me what happened, or I won't allow you to leave the house to go and train anymore for the night."

"Troy really did want to make sure that I wasn't going to back out of the fight, but he also wanted me to know what he had planned for me when he won."

"And that would be?"

"Derick he plans to keep me for the rest of his life. He wants me to bare his children, and what not. I tried to tell him that that would never happen and he slapped me across the face."

"So that's where the bruise came from. That couldn't have been all that was said."

"No. And when I tried to tell him that there was no way I would allow him to win, he…"

"He what?"

"He told me that if I won, he was going to have both of you killed, if I didn't agree to be with him. I won't let you two die for this fight."

"So he has it to where, if you lose, he gets you as part of the prize, and if you win, he gets you because of your loyalty to Riddick and myself. So either way, I will never get to see you after the fight is over with."

"Derick, I would rather die than see you or Riddick die, or have to hand him my title. I will find a way out of this mess so that most of the people are happy."

Derick almost believed that she was lying, but wasn't sure how to confront her about it. She kissed him on the cheek and went back outside to finish her "training".

While she was outside trying to keep from being angry with the guys for leaving to go after Troy, she had just finished the obstacle course for the twentieth time when she was captured by a pair of strong arms and a smell she couldn't identify and didn't like.

She tried to struggle free, but the arms only held on tighter. As soon as she was too tired to be able to get free, he leaned down and whispered into her ear, "Don't tell me you thought this little obstacle course would actually prepare you for our fight." Dannie would have retorted, but he had covered her mouth to keep the comments in.

"I have another deal for you, and I think this will be more to your liking. I have evidence that your father killed about ten of my men earlier this afternoon when they came after me, and since I pretty much own the entire police force, I'll not only have your father's warrant reopened, but I'll have your boyfriend booted off the force if you don't back down from the fight and pledge yourself to me. Don't answer now, I want to hear it at the fight tomorrow night in front of the entire crowd. If you do as I say, your father will remain a free man, Derick will be able to keep his job, and I'll even allow you to see Derick on the side, so long as you have my children. I'm not an unreasonable man, I wouldn't want you to be bored while you are in my home while I am at work." He leaned down and kissed her on the neck, like a vampire would right before he would bite you. "Remember, you have until tomorrow night to think about it and you have to announce it before the fight begins, or else the deal is off."

As he left, he shoved her into the middle of the obstacle course, where she was getting beat to a bloody pulp because she was so disoriented. Once he was gone, Riddick and Derick ran to the backyard to find Dannie laying on the ground unconscious, still being hit by the things in the course. Riddick ran into the middle of it and grabbed Dannie before she was killed, being knocked around a bit himself, while Derick was trying to find a way to shut the damn thing down.

It was just a good thing that Dannie was a fast healer, especially with some of the brown liquid that Dannie had given Derick the night of the tournament. Dannie learned the recipe from Kyra, she learned it from Zara, and Zara learned it from Riddick, but no one ever found out who Riddick learned the recipe from.

While when Dannie gave that stuff to Derick he slept for over twenty hours, Dannie only needed about three hours and she was all better. She was even up in time for her date with Derick. But before she could go and play nice with Derick, she just had to confront them both about what had happened.

"I have something that I need to talk to you both about before I can leave this house, and neither of you are allowed to interrupt me. If you do, without me having asked you a question, this night is going to get bloody."

She looked them both long and hard and then started back up, "OK, now I know that both of you are wondering why Troy was here yet again. It turns out that he has evidence against you dad for the murder of about ten of his men earlier this afternoon. With this evidence, he can have your warrant reopened in an instant, which means that you will be either on the run again or put into prison and I'll never get to see you again. And Derick, he practically owns the police force since he has the mayor in his pocket, so one call to his good buddy the mayor, and your out of a job, and you'll have to leave the planet just so you can get another job as a police officer.

All this means that I will be left alone if I don't agree to back down from the fight and pledge myself to him. So instead of having you both killed if I win and don't agree to his terms, if I don't back down from the fight and I end up winning, he is going to make sure that I never see either one of you again and that I will be left alone." She broke down into tears, "Why did you have to kill his men? You told me that you had given that up and you promised that you would never do anything to jeopardize your freedom."

Riddick got up off of the couch and went to put his arms around her, but she started hitting him instead and he just took it. "Why…why…why?" Derick got up and grabbed a hold of her to keep her from hurting herself. "If you two had just not gone after him, then he wouldn't have this on you, and everything could have been straightened out. I could have settled it and I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not if I'd ever see you again." _Sobs._

"Hey, don't worry about it. Don't think about it anymore. We can go out tonight and I'll get your mind off of everything and then tomorrow you can worry about this. Anyways, he can't do all of this that he keeps saying that he is going to do, he's just trying to pull your focus off of the fight so he has a better chance to win."

"Do you think so?" "Of course." Riddick chimed in.

"Alright." She dried her tears. "Let's go have some fun before all this crap takes hold." And with that they left for their date, but Dannie knew that Troy had the kind of power that he continued to display over her. She knew that if he really wanted something to happen, then he had the type of resources to make sure that it got done, but she tried to not let it dampen the mood for the evening.

Derick took her out for a fancy dinner at a high priced, snooty, French restaurant where they had a wonderful meal, most of which Dannie had never had before. There was Escargot for an appetizer, which tasted like rubber to Dannie, fresh-made dinner rolls, tossed salad with an herb vinaigrette dressing, homemade chicken noodle soup, veal and chicken parmesan for the main courses, and Tiramesue for dessert. Dannie had never eaten so much food, and she was about ready to pop, but Derick took her dancing after dinner which helped her to work off everything that she ate so she wouldn't feel the need to smack him for making her eat so much food.

It was late when they finally made it home and they were both tired from all the dancing. Dannie had never been dancing, so Derick had to teach her how to do it, and he didn't start out with the slow dancing, he started out with the hot and heavy dancing that he hoped would help to get Dannie into the right mood for what he had planned for her next, and sure enough it did.

"I feel like I'm drunk."

"But you didn't have any alcohol tonight, I didn't even have any."

"I know, it must be a different high. I have never had this much fun before in my life, and I owe it all to you." She pulled him close to her and kissed him with everything that she had.

Derick picked her up by the waist and wrapped her legs around his waist to keep her right where he wanted her, situated right above his erected crotch. He grabbed her ass firmly in his palm and she heaved herself up at his touch burying his face in her almost bare chest. He had her hang onto his head so he could start to undo the many buttons on her top before he ripped it off of her revealing bare breasts.

He threw her onto the bed and started removing her pants, but her hands were in the way, she was trying to even the score by taking off his shirt, she didn't want to be stark naked and him not have removed a stitch of clothing. She won out and undid the buttons on his shirt and slid it off of his shoulders as slowly as possible, making him wait for the next part. When she finally had it to his hands he helped her get it off the rest of the way as he started kissing her again.

Once he had her back down on the bed, he started back on her pants, but was beginning to get impatient with the one button on her jeans, it was the nicest thing she had to wear and Derick wore the same type of thing that she wore so she wouldn't look too out of place, so he had her undo it, and he ripped them off of her. She had no problem getting his jeans button undone, she just took her sweet time and practically had him begging her to hurry up. She slid his pants down and found out that he wasn't wearing any underwear, so she had him undressed before she was. But as fast as he had her panties off, it was like she had never been wearing any herself.

Now was the best part of the entire night. Derick was on top of her covering her body with his, and his body was covered by the covers on the bed. He was very gentle about the whole thing. He stroked her cheek to make sure that she wasn't afraid of what was going to happen, looked deep into her eyes, and kissed her gently at first and then got more passionate as the kiss continued. His right hand traveled down her body and rested on the inner part of her thigh in order to get her to open her legs so he could insert himself.

She was trembling in his arms, but she wanted this as much as he did so she did as he "told" her to. He got himself into a comfortable spot and just as he started to stick his tongue into her mouth to distract her from the pain that he knew was coming, he thrust himself into her wet body and she let out of cry of immense pain which turned into pleasure after a few tiny in and out strokes.

It had been so long since he himself had had any sex, so it was almost like it was his first time as well. He knew what kind of pain he had just subjected her to, and he knew what to expect out of this. He hit all the right spots to get the kind of reaction that he wanted. He wanted her engulfed in every kind of pleasure possible, he touched her all over, kissed all the spots he could get to, and he just kept going into her deeper and deeper. He started off slow and gentle, but as time went by, and there was no longer any pain, only pleasure being felt, he started going at it like a wild beast. There was no way in hell he was going to stop now and that made it all the more pleasurable to Dannie.

She was moaning so loud and everytime she hit a release point, her screams were even louder and it forced Riddick to have to leave the house so he wouldn't go downstairs to their bedroom and interrupt them in the middle of everything. Before he left, Riddick heard her hit her third orgasm and that wasn't even the halfway point for them that evening. Everything was so new to her, the sensations, and the feelings she was experiencing were worth so much more because they were new, and Derick was the one helping her experience these things.

Riddick came back to the house after dawn and they were still going at it. They were on their final release when Riddick came in the house, and then the house was quiet again. They were both so tired, that neither of them moved from the positions they were in. Derick had collapsed on top of Dannie's heaving chest and hadn't even bothered to try to remove himself from her, he was just out. Dannie didn't mind, she was too tired to care that he was laying on her, plus it still felt so right to have him inside of her, that she wrapped her fingers up in his hair and fell asleep with a smile on her face.


	15. The Fall of a Champion

**This is the last chapter, and I don't know just how long it will end up being, so don't read unless you have some time to spare. This chapter will have a lot of flashbacks in it, but they will all be separated out, so hopefully you won't have to hard a time figuring out who is thinking what. I hope you have enjoyed this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it.**

The ceremony was beautiful, flowers everywhere, people all dressed up, the entire station showed up in their dress blues, and everyone from the ring who had ever fought against Dannie, even those first few who got her started, showed up at the church to pay their respects, all of them in either dresses or suits, no one in their fighting clothes. Even Kyra, Connor, and the kids were there all dressed up nice. Dannie's favorite flowers were everywhere. They were the GPB Rose Trifecta, the Green, Purple, and Blue Rose Trifecta. It is a single flower with three blossoms, and it grows only on Helion Prime, in three different meadows, only one time a year. If you are lucky enough to find a wild Trifecta, the colors are more rich and are almost, Jade, Midnight Purple, and Sapphire Blue, but when grown indoors, the colors are an Emerald Green, Violet, and Royal Blue.

Because of their rarity, no one is allowed to pick the Trifecta, under penalty of imprisonment and a five hundred dollar fine. But, because of Troy's connections, and that he owns two of the three fields that the Trifecta grows on, only a certain amount of people were allowed to pick a rose to give to Dannie to from a bouquet for her to hold. All the rest of the flowers were either the store bought version which can cost anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred dollars for a single Trifecta, or they were everyday ordinary roses died and intertwined to look like the Trifecta. What can I say, the girl had good taste in flowers. When everyone had gotten their Trifecta from the field, including Riddick, Derick, Kyra, and Troy, there was only a single Trifecta left in the government owned field.

"Dannie reminded me so much of her mother. Beautiful, strong, and strong willed." Riddick said through the tears welling up inside of him.

_**Your mother was the most beautiful woman that I have ever fought with. She had an air about her. I would want to fight her, but not really hurt her, just let her know who was truly in charge of the entire situation.**_

"Dannie and I fought almost constantly when I first showed up. I had to find ways to get her to just accept what happened and to allow me to get close to her. But there were days when all I wanted to do was give up, and then she would ask for help, or call me dad not realizing she'd done it, and I would have a whole new reason to keep trying."

_**It's not like I would have tried to kill her, but I had to come up with some rather inventive ways to keep from actually having to get into a fist fight everytime I came near her. Only once did I not have to fight her. I had pulled her behind one of the buildings while everyone was inside having a drink of the water they found in the settlement, she tried to throw a couple of punches at me, but I caught them, and pinned her up against the building with her hands above her head. I looked deep into her eyes, put my free hand around her waist, and kissed her as hard as I could. She seemed to calm down after that, she didn't fight me everytime she was within arms length of me, but Jonns could see the change in her attitude towards me, and that just pissed him off even more. She ended up sticking closer to me after that so Jonns couldn't get to her.**_

"I used to tell her stories from when I first met her mother and her Aunt Kyra, and at first she would have a quick remark for everything that I had to say, but eventually, I believe, she grew to trust me, and with that came respect and understanding, so she would keep her comments to herself after that."

_**I loved your mother, so don't ever think that I just left, I had to. Mercks were after me, and I didn't want them to use her to get to me, so I left in hopes that one day I could return. But if I had known about you, I would have taken her with me and kept you both safe.**_

"She always hated the idea that I left all those years ago, and at first she actually believed that I didn't love her or her mother, but that was settled right away. We had our differences, but we had so many similarities. She had my fighting abilities, stamina, and my survival instincts, but she was her mother's daughter, and that's why I loved her as much as I did."

_**I sent Kyra to go help raise you, I didn't think that your mother would have wanted you to end up like me, she wanted you to have a real chance in life.**_

"Thinking back on my decisions, if I would have stayed with her after her mother died, she might have had a better life. She wouldn't have grown up so angry, I would have changed for the better much earlier in life, and maybe none of this would have ever happened. She would have had me around, so she wouldn't have been so angry all the time, and even if she had been, I would have been around for her to take it out on, and she would never have started this underground ring and I would still have her with me."

Riddick went to sit down as Kyra got up to say her good-byes, and there was a hug between them as they passed eachother, both crying into the other ones shoulder. Kyra got up to the coffin, placed a kiss on her cheek with her finger tips, and then continued to the pulpit, to say her peace. She tried very hard to say what she was going to say without the tears welling up, but one look out at the enormous crowd, all of the beautiful flowers, and she almost completely broke down in front of everyone.

"I look out over this crowd and all I can see is how much every one loved her. Somewhere, deep inside, she loved all of you too. Maybe not in the same way, but she respected you, worked with you, lived with you, and she never once tried to kill any of you. Everyone here knew her in a different way. Some as the Destroyer, undefeated champion of a now closed underground fighting ring, she was known as a teacher to the police for Defense without Weapons, the woman who took down the last remaining merck crew in the universe, she was a daughter to some, and she was a true love to one."

She kept going on about Dannie's childhood and all of the things that made Dannie who she was, but Derick was the only one not listening to her. He kept thinking about that day, the morning before the fight, how he should have stayed there with her instead of leaving with Riddick.

**While Dannie was eating her breakfast, Derick woke after turning over and not finding Dannie laying in the bed next to him. He snuck up behind her, grabbed her around the waist, pulled out of the chair she was sitting in, and into his chest in mid bite. Her back was still at him so he was nuzzling her from behind.**

"**Why aren't you still in bed laying next to me, naked? It's far too early for you to be up and about dressed and out of my arms."**

"**I have to get ready for the fight tonight, and I can't just lay around in bed all day. I have to get myself focused and I can't do that in your arms, no matter how good they feel around me."**

**She unwrapped his arms and walked back to the table to finish her breakfast. He went back to the bedroom and laid back down for a few more minutes. It would have been longer, only she wasn't next to him so there was no reason for him to be there if she wasn't. She finished her breakfast and hopped into the shower before Derick had a chance to ambush her again. She took a very hot, short shower, just enough to wake up all of her muscles at once and wash her body. She got dressed in the bathroom, and when she emerged she undid the bun her hair was in during the shower and put it back up into a ponytail braid for the fight.**

**She was dressed in a black bra and tank top, green, black and brown camouflage pants, it would have been her black cargo shorts, but it was winter there, so she was going to have to change when she got to the ring, and her black army boots, not that she would be fighting in them, but they just worked so well with what she was wearing. For the fight she would be wearing her top, black cargo shorts, and socks, no shoes allowed.**

**She would have gone outside to workout before her fight, only she never fought in her boots, or pants, so she wouldn't get the right kind of training. Instead, she stayed inside and stretched every part of her body, from her head to her toes, put herself into odd positions, and then finally she sat down in the middle of the floor, closed her eyes, and began to meditate. Not that she was chanting or anything like that, but neither of the guys could get her attention for an hour that morning.**

**When she did finally come out of her "trance", she went over to the computer and started pulling up some rare fighting maneuvers that she hoped she could learn before the fight tonight. It is rather strange, if someone tries to teach Dannie anything but the most basic of moves manually, nothing will stick in her head, but if she sees it on a video game or on the computer, assuming no powers are involved, she can imitate the move flawlessly.**

"**Dannie, you are a brilliant fighter, why don't you come out with us today and have some fun before everything goes down tonight?" Derick pleaded with Dannie.**

"**I can't."**

"**Why not?" said Riddick already knowing the answer to the question.**

"**I must prepare for the fight tonight." she said pulling up another page of fighting maneuvers.**

"**Just for an hour or two, that won't kill you." Derick pleaded again.**

"**I can't."**

"**Yes you can. And if you still refuse, than Riddick and I will just have to drag you out with us, kicking and screaming." Derick tried to sound forceful.**

"**I can't, but that doesn't mean that you two can't. You guys go, have some fun. I have to stay here and prepare, I have to find some way to win this fight. Go!"**

**With that, Riddick dragged Derick away from Dannie and out the door. He decided not to fight Riddick about this, he figured that he did that for everyone's best interests. This way, Dannie could go a head and focus on what she had to do and Derick wouldn't be there bugging her to death so she wouldn't have to say something she obviously didn't mean to him to get him to go away and end up ruining everything they had now.**

**While the guys went to a bar to have a few and play some pool and darts to keep their minds off of the night's events, Dannie was at home soaking up every martial arts move she could find on the computer. **_(A/N: I do realize that most of what you are about to read Derick would never have known about, but it was needed for the story so that you all would know what happened.)_** Most she already knew from previous downloads, kick-flips, upper cuts, jabs, that sort of thing, but their some things that she had never seen before and those were the ones that she studied hardest.**

**She found four very odd moves, but she figured that she could do them, Bicycle Kick, Pink Dragon, Peace of Mind, and Pirouette Kick. **_(Disclaimer: The first three moves are from three different characters from a video game called Mortal Kombat __V Deadly AllianceThe last move is one that I made up just to have something to add to the move list.)_** The Bicycle Kick was the hardest to do because it required you do be fast enough to keep yourself in the air long enough to finish the move. It starts out easy enough, you jump up in the air, but you have to be close enough to someone so you can start kicking them, and when you start, it helps to keep you in the air. Pink Dragon is really just a pretty name for a back kick, it really just has to do with the way you stand when you perform the kick. Now Peace of Mind is so cool, it's a straight up high kick, then you pull it back down, and you finish it off by turning around while doing a back kick, and you send the person flying across the room. And a Pirouette Kick is a lot like a Bicycle Kick. You have to be going at a very high speed to get up in the air, but you extend your leg like you are going to do a Pirouette, and you just continue to go around until you stop. It is a very pretty kick, and it does a lot of damage to your opponent.**

**When the guys finally got back to the house, Dannie was already gone, but she left a note for them.**

**Dear Derick and Dad,**

**I'm sorry I couldn't wait for you to show up. I found a few new moves that I need to practice before the fight, so I went to the gym early while the place is empty enough for me to do what I need.**

**I hope to see you both at the fight. Don't be late, it starts at six thirty this evening. I love you both so much, so please don't worry about me too much.**

**Love with all my heart,**

**Dannie**

"**Damn! It's already five thirty and Riddick is hammered. There is no way he'll be sober enough to come to the fight in time. I hope me being there will be enough for her."**

**Derick got Riddick situated on the couch so that he could sleep off his alcohol, and got ready to go. He may have been in jeans and a T-shirt, and he may not have been fighting tonight, but there was still a certain dress code for the ring. Even those people who had no chance to fight always came dressed for it, and if he came dressed the way he was at that moment, he would have been laughed out of the ring after having to kick everyone's ass who so much as looked at him wrong.**

**It took him thirty minutes to find his clothes that he wanted to wear to the fight, they were scattered everywhere throughout the room, and he had to be careful not to pick up Dannie's clothes by mistake since their fighting clothes looked so much alike.**

**By the time he found his clothes, got ready to go and wrote Riddick a note telling him that he went to the fight and Dannie left a note that he should read, and finally left the house, he had only twenty minutes to get there and tell Dannie that Riddick wouldn't be able to make it to the fight. But as it turned out, everyone seemed to have left late for the fight, and so the roads to the ring were crowded for miles with cars, trucks, and motorcycles, all parked along the sidewalks because there wasn't any parking any closer.**

**So Derick had to hoof it all the way to the ring from two miles back. And him not being a good runner only made the distance even worse.**

**_Why couldn't she have made the fight for a later time? At least then I wouldn't have to run the entire way and I might be able to breathe when I get there. I mean hell, if she had just waited until I got back home, then I wouldn't have this problem. We could have ridden in the same car together and then I wouldn't have to walk all the fucking way there, she has her own reserved parking space._**

**Derick did manage to make it to the fight before it was over, but by the time he made it there, Dannie was already winded, and Troy looked like he could go another ten rounds without breaking a sweat. Dannie was used to fast fights, never any longer than maybe ten minutes and then her opponent was down on the ground begging for mercy. Tonight, however, the ten minutes were almost up and Dannie looked like hell.**

**Because of this, a buzzer was sounded and the cage went up to allow a ref into the ring to stop the fight for a brief pause while the fighters got a chance to relax, rehydrate, and re-energize their bodies. That was when Derick was finally able to get close enough to Dannie to tell her that he was going to be her only "backup", and make his apologies for Riddick.**

**When he finished with what he had to say, Dannie reached down, pulled Derick to her and gave him a long passionate kiss before the cage came back down and he was dragged away from her by the mob of people trying to get a better spot to watch what was going on. He would have fought to keep his spot, but he was so dazed by the kiss, and the message he hoped he hadn't felt in it, that he just allowed the people to crowd around him.**

**_She can't be trying to tell me good-bye! She will win this fight, she has to win. That wasn't good-bye, was it? _Dannie's screams knocked him out of his trance and he fought his way back up to the head of the mob to find out what happened to Dannie.**

"She will be missed by all, and although in reality she was defeated by Troy, she will forever remain the undefeated champion because of his negligence in the ring, and his over-powering need to win at all costs. To the Destroyer, undefeated champion until the day she died."

She left the pulpit and on her way to go sit back down she passed by Derick on his way to go and say his good-byes. Glances and hugs were exchanged between them both.

As he got up to the pulpit, he starred out at everyone there mourning Dannie along with him and her family, and all he could do was think about what happened at the end of the fight.

**Troy had thrown her against the cage wall after he had broken her arm in two different places which was why she let out the scream that jogged Derick out of his trance earlier. By the time that Derick made it back up to the front of the mob, Dannie had already performed the Peace of Mind move on Troy, and he ended up across the cage on the ground. It gave her just enough time to reset her arm so she could continue the fight, but in a diminished capacity.**

**It hurt every time she tried to throw a right jab or anything that concerned that arm, but she was still able to cause him some damage. She hated throwing left punches, but that was the only arm at full capacity, and she needed the practice. Derick stayed up close to the front of the crowd for the remainder of the fight, so he was up close and personal when the fight ended.**

He looked over at Troy, the man who killed the only woman he had ever loved, the only person to have ever "defeated" the only woman to have ever defeated him. He filled with anger and even more depression, the only thing he could think to do was kill that son of a bitch, but he knew that there were other people waiting in line for the first shot, and by the time he would get to him, Troy would already be dead. He wanted to have Troy thrown out of the service, but he was paying for most of it, and it wasn't his decision, so he kept it to himself.

**After she had reset her arm, she had fallen to the ground on her hands and knees from sheer exhaustion. She would have stayed on the ground, maybe even have fallen the rest of the way down if Troy hadn't gotten to his feet at that point in time. Dannie forced herself back up onto her feet, blood all over her face and arms, mixing with the sweat on her arms so it was dripping off of her.**

**She decided to try a Pirouette Kick, knowing just how tired she was. She charged at Troy, at what was her full speed for now, and just before she got to him, she jumped into the air and spun around, landing a few kicks, and as she hit the ground she upper-cutted him for good measure. She half ran half stumbled to the cage wall and fell to her knees.**

"**Dannie!" she heard from the crowd of voices, "Dannie!" She was never called by her first name when she was fighting, "Dannie!" Dannie remembered that Derick had shown up so she started to look for him, "Dannie!"**

"**Derick!" She found him right under her nose, but he looked more worried than she was, and she already knew what was going to happen.**

"**Dannie, don't you dare fucking give up. You can still win this, just don't fucking give up."**

"**I'm not giving up, I just don't think I have a chance in hell of winning this. He has already broken my arm in two different places, and I think when I landed after that kick that I broke my ankle."**

"**Dannie!" She had thought that she had more time before he was going to get back up, but she was obviously wrong, and now he had her pinned down to the ground under him, in the middle of the ring where he had thrown her, in a head lock choking the life out of her.**

"**If you give up now, I'll only make you stay with me for a month, and neither of them will have to be put through the torments that I had planned for them."**

"**I will never give up. If you want to win that badly, than you'll have to kill me, otherwise, I'll fight until you have to give up." He started choking her harder.**

"**Just fucking give up already! I don't want to have to kill you, and I will not lose against you again."**

"**I already told you … if you want to win … you'll have … to kill … me."**

**Troy had to win. There was no way in hell he was going to lose to her again, not after all the damage he had caused her. He was clearly winning, so if she won now, there would be no end to the humiliation that he would have to endure if she was able to come back from the brink of defeat and won.**

**He became so angry, so enraged. The only thing he could think to do was just to continue to squeeze the life out of her. He knew that if he didn't do it, she really would just continue to fight him until either he killed her or had to quit to save his own life.**

**He could have quit at anytime and she would have been out cold and he would have won the fight legally, but he was more afraid that she would wake up right after he let her go and she would pull some incredible move and knock him unconscious and win the fight, so he just kept going until he felt her body go limp.**

**The moment he let her go, the cage was brought up and refs, doctors, and Derick all climbed onto the ring to attend to Dannie. The refs held Troy back to his own "corner" of the ring while the doctors all examined Dannie to make sure that she wasn't dead, while Derick watched everything trying to wake Dannie. The head physician stood after a couple of minutes of examination but didn't look happy in the least bit.**

**He took Derick by the shoulder and gave him the bad news, "Dannie is dead. Troy killed her by strangulation and he also broke her neck in the process. There is no way in hell we can revive her."**

**Derick looked over at Dannie laying there on the ground first, and then over at Troy who had yet to hear the news and was looking proud of himself with a smug smile on his face. There was a clear path between him and Troy, the doctors were still hovering over Dannie making sure that none of the spectators disturbed the body, and the refs were all around the ring because Troy had calmed down waiting for it to be announced that he had defeated the Destroyer. The doctor that had told him about Dannie went over to where the other doctors were at, so he was standing there all alone.**

**_She knew that there was no way she would beat him this time. I never should have allowed her to fight him again. I should have taken her some place safe. I should have taken her away to Kyra's or anywhere, just so long as she was no where near here. It's my fault she's dead! No! It's his fault! He could have let go of her at anytime, but he didn't. He killed her! He fucking killed her!_**

**Derick snapped at that point. He ran over to where Troy was standing and lunged at him. Troy was tired from the fight so he had no way to block what was coming at him. Derick landed on top of him and commenced to beating Troy to a bloody pulp, cursing him and yelling things like, "It's all your fault!", "She was finally happy, and you took it all away!", and "It's your fault she's dead!"**

**A couple of the refs came over to break up the fight that had started without their knowledge. They pulled Derick off of Troy and held him down across the ring. When Troy was able to stand of his own free will, the announcement was made.**

"**Now this is when I would normally announce that the person standing here next to me is now the new champion of this ring, but because of circumstances unforeseen, the man standing next to me is the loser of this fight. The one and only rule of this ring is that there is absolutely no killing in this ring. Because he killed the Destroyer, our undefeated champion, he is disqualified from the fight and is now and forever banished from this fighting ring."**

"**What!" cried out Troy. "What do you mean disqualified? I didn't kill her, she is just unconscious."**

**The head physician stepped forward and said with a heavy heart, "The Destroyer was killed by strangulation and a broken neck, caused by the opponent, Troy." The other doctors all confirmed his announcement and one of the other doctors covered her face with a sheet to signify that she was dead. And she was carried out of the ring on a stretcher through the hole in the crowd that the people made out of respect.**

"It will forever be burned into my memory what happened that day, how she died, and how she looked when she died. I loved her more than anything in the world, and if I had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would have been killed during that fight, I not only would never have allowed her to fight in it, I would have killed that son of a bitch to keep him away from her for forever."

Derick looked over at Troy again, the wealthiest man in all of Helion Prime, and the loneliest man at that. He almost began to feel sorry for him, but that quickly passed to anger again.

"The only consolations that I have are the memories that I have of her. I had the chance to memorize every part of her body, I got to be apart of her life in more than one way, and I got to love her beyond life and death. More than the majority of you here today ever had a chance to do. I loved her deeply, and she loved me just as deeply. Some day in some way, I will see the man that killed her pay for it, and on that day, Dannie will finally be at peace."

After Derick's speech, the rest of the ceremony was performed and she was buried next to her mother in the backyard of her home. All of the bearers had to carry the coffin the entire five miles from the church to her home and then help place her in the earth.

Her tombstone read:

** Dannie** **the Destroyer**

** Undefeated Champion**

** until the day she died.**

** Beloved daughter and**

** a great friend to all.**

** R.I.P.**

Her bouquet that was made from the wild Trifecta picked from the fields was planted at the head of her grave, all except for each of the flowers that Riddick, Derick, and Kyra had picked, they were left with her in the coffin for her to hold throughout the after live. After the first year, all of the fields had grown back in more luscious volumes and a new special field appeared in the little cemetery behind the house. Dannie's grave was now covered in the Trifecta year round and every blossom had the most vibrant shades possible, even better than the ones in the fields. Every color was deeper, brighter, and just more the way Dannie had always believed that the flower would look the best.

In some ways it brought a peace to both of the guys, but most of all it brought back all the memories they ever had of her. Derick's prediction had been correct. Two years after the ceremony, Telemicus Rodda, Troy, lost all of his money, power, and connections after people stopped doing business with his company after they all found out that he was the one who killed the Destroyer and took away their chances to face her in the ring.

The ring was closed forever and all other rings like it were closed in memory of Dannie. Riddick even took over her classes at the police station with Derick as his assistant teacher. Both of them stayed in the house, Derick never moved on from Dannie, and Kyra and Connor moved the kids to Helion Prime so that they could all be with eachother and help eachother get through this time. Kyra had another child soon after arriving on Helion Prime, but instead of naming her like they had been doing to their children, always starting with a "K" sound, they named her Dannie Kayla Hall. She was Riddick's favorite of Kyra's children, she was just like Dannie in everyway, only calmer.


End file.
